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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26281111">The Paths of Glory Lead but to the Grave</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder/pseuds/sithmarauder'>sithmarauder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(to an extent), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Court Martial, Domesticity, Fix-It of Sorts, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Horses, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, I’m Bringing Back Horseboy Edward With No Regrets, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption for Dundy, Softcore Porn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Stone Cold Tom Jopson, Survivor Guilt, Warning: Bibliography, art added!, gratuitous kissing, gratuitous touching, let these lads rest and find happiness, sleeping on the floor because the bed is too soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:53:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,845</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26281111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder/pseuds/sithmarauder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“A full court martial is technically required when a ship is lost."</i>
</p><p>In 1851, a small fleet under the command of Captain Horatio Thomas Austin located the survivors of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition and brought twenty-some corpse-like figures back to England.  Given temporary leave to recuperate in the countryside following their ordeal, Edward Little and Thomas Jopson attempt to reconcile the past with the present and the fact that not all the ice was left behind in the Arctic.</p><p>Or, nearly 30k of survivor's guilt, intimacy, the softness and tragedy of the human connection, and learning to forgive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Terror Big Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Paths of Glory Lead but to the Grave</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic is a pinch-hit for the Terror Big Bang project and is an <i>absolute</i> labour of love, which I poured literal blood, sweat, and tears into in order to get it done for the deadline.  I regret nothing, even if my poor laptop is likely screaming at me, and my fingers are filled with so many papercuts from my books that typing became vaguely painful at one point.  It is my first ever Big Bang, too, despite my long years writing fic, so I am doubly excited to debut it, especially since I essentially wrote the entire thing (after being asked) in August in between packing up my life and moving cities, among other things.  I beg for kindness, and I hope that everyone enjoys reading this fic as much as I ultimately enjoyed writing it.</p><p>I am beyond blessed to have been able to work with the amazingly talented <a href="https://priestly.tumblr.com/">priestly</a>, whose gorgeous art is the sun that shines about my little crop of assorted joplittle.  Thank you for being an amazing collaboration partner, and for making this whole experience an utterly fantastic one 🖤</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://priestly.tumblr.com/post/630183174320881664/">ART MASTERPOST</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p> </p><p>The fanfare that greeted them upon their return was everything Edward had feared it would be and nothing at all like he had expected.  After all, the expedition had been a failure, unless he was sorely mistaken, and the capricious nature of the people and their wounded national pride meant that failure was oft met with stormy crowds and harsh words.  Edward himself could feel the sting of it, a heavy thing that cloaked the few remaining men with despair, adding to the perpetual exhaustion that dogged their steps.</p><p>Only Captain Austin remained in good spirits the closer they drew to their destination.  <em>And why not?  He is a man victorious, </em>Edward thought with no small amount of cynicism as HMS <em>Resolute</em> made her way inward, her manner and bearing a credit to her name.</p><p>His fingers, numb, curled into fists at his side.  Strangely, there was no urge to fidget beyond that, and he held his breath until the burn of his lungs was too much for him to bear.</p><p><em>Home</em>, Edward’s better senses told him, but the relief that he had expected to accompany that thought was nowhere to be found, and he was left standing somewhat bereft as <em>Resolute’s</em> second master gave the order to set their sails and to keep their course.</p><p>He adjusted the musket slung across his back, casting a surreptitious glance behind him towards where some of the other surviving men had gathered.  There were too few of them, even accounting for the fact that what remained of their once-robust crew was spread across multiple ships, and while relief was stark on the faces of some—a desperate hunger even more so—others looked at the London shore like men being lead to an execution.</p><p>Edward’s eye caught on one man in particular, a dark cloud leeching out from his chest as he held Le Vesconte’s gaze.  Times past, Le Vesconte had been one of the first to smile, his easy manner something that had once curried him favour amongst the other officers.  Edward effortlessly recalled how the gold had sparkled on his epaulettes long ago: before the ships had left port, before the ice, before everything.</p><p>There was no sparkle now.  Le Vesconte’s uniform was discoloured and ill-fitting, his hair lank and greying, and to his left, where Fitzjames and Gore and Fairholme had once stood, was only empty space.  As the last of <em>Erebus</em>’ surviving officers, he should have shouldered the rank of commander, of captain.</p><p>He didn’t.</p><p>Edward, not as good a man as he should have been, not as good an officer as they’d needed, only added that to the list of things he resented about Le Vesconte and turned away, his eyes landing on Crozier, who had come up on deck with Jopson at his side.</p><p>The black cloud dissipated, replaced with something that closed Edward’s throat and quelled the urge he had to move aimlessly, replacing it with the urge to move forward, his world narrowed blessedly down to an apex.</p><p>Only two living souls would be able to see any exhaustion in Thomas Jopson’s bearing and Edward, whose eyes had always gravitated to the captain’s steward—the captain’s <em>lieutenant</em>—like a compass pointed due north, only paused a moment before he walked over to them, holding out an arm for Jopson, who dipped his head briefly but accepted it once he was sure no one was paying them any undue attention.</p><p>“Edward,” Crozier greeted.</p><p>“Sir,” Edward replied, inclining his head towards the gunwale near <em>Resolute’s</em> bow.  Crozier’s expression was difficult to discern, but they moved as one unit to where Edward had spent the last hour keeping watch, and when Crozier at last registered the crowd that had gathered Edward could see that pleasure was the furthest thing from the captain’s mind.</p><p>“Has half the damned city come out?” he muttered under his breath.  Jopson, leaning ever-so-slightly against Edward, looked up.  When he spoke, his voice was soft, belying the hardness in his eyes.</p><p>“A hero’s welcome, sir.”</p><p>“And who might that hero be?” Crozier answered, and Edward, hearing the edge in the captain’s voice, could only agree silently with the sentiment.  With equal silence he mourned the way Jopson’s hand slipped off his arm when Captain Austin approached them, his first lieutenant in tow.</p><p>At fifty-one years of age and with several years of command under his belt, Horatio Austin had been chosen to command the rescue fleet’s flagship due to his experience with the steamers, <em>Pioneer</em> and <em>Intrepid</em>, that had been deployed in an attempt to locate the expedition while, as far as Edward could figure, avoiding becoming trapped in ice as permanently as <em>Terror</em> and <em>Erebus </em>had been.  The steamers ambled behind <em>Resolute</em> now, alongside the ships HMS <em>Assistant</em>, <em>Lady Franklin, Sophia, </em>and John Ross’ <em>Felix</em>, a triumphant procession that made something cruel inside of Edward whisper <em>too little, too late</em> as he thought of all the empty spaces that had been prepared aboard the small contingent of ships for men who had not lived to occupy them.</p><p>“We’re close now, gentlemen.  How does it feel to see England once more?” Captain Austin said, face creased in a smile. <em> The returning hero</em>, Edward thought again, grim<em>, </em>and it <em>was</em> unkind when Captain Austin had done so much for them, more than some of the other captains had been willing to do when their little fleet had met up in the straight with their half-dead cargo.</p><p>John Ross’ creased face came to mind, as did the blackened mouths of his crew, who’d looked almost as dead as Edward had felt at the time.</p><p>“Close,” Jopson murmured, so quietly that only Edward could hear, and he was left to puzzle over the repetition as he watched something in Crozier stiffen in response to Austin’s assessment, a cynical curve overtaking his mouth before he was able to smooth it out.  Edward blinked slowly, but tucked the questions away.</p><p><em>Later</em>.</p><p>They had a later, now, maybe.  Perhaps.  <em>God willing</em>.</p><p>Whatever that meant.</p><p>“She’s as cold as I remember her,” Crozier said to Austin, who chuckled, waving once at the gathered crowd.  Edward doubted they could see, but that didn’t seem to matter to Austin, who had a great deal more waiting for him on the other side.</p><p>“Ah, but there is plenty of warmth to be found, don’t you think?  Plenty to look forward to.”</p><p>Edward, who had once served in the warmth and begged for its opposite and who could now no longer remember what such a thing felt like, hid a grimace behind a blank expression of his own.  Jopson was stiff at his side, a silent pillar, but he lowered his head respectfully when Austin turned to them both.</p><p>“And you, Commander?” he said.  Edward, still unused to the promotion he had received <em>in absentia</em>, only responded, simply:</p><p>“I hear the countryside is nice this time of year.”</p><p>Austin laughed at that, clapping Edward once on the shoulder before strolling off to oversee the fleet’s docking, leaving the three men to stand like prisoners on their way to the gallows.  Crozier, beside him still, beheld the shore with a narrow-eyed expression that did little to belie the anger that sparked in their depths, but Edward—exhausted, beaten down, his knuckles still split and bruised in spirit and his soul worse yet—could not even summon that.</p><p>Fingers curled against his palm, following an oft-travelled path, and Edward felt his shoulders relax a fraction at their familiar weight.  He did not need to turn his head to know it was Jopson, who stood casting icy blue eyes over the gathered Londoners.  What Jopson thought upon seeing them—if he secretly wished for the relative quiet of Greenhithe, as Edward did—was of no consequence.</p><p>Evidently, what the surviving men of Franklin’s doomed expedition wanted was of no consequence at all.</p><p>“Right,” Crozier said grimly.  If he was surprised by the strength of the welcome he did not show it.  Doubtless he knew enough not to count on it—the capricious nature of London, and the Admiralty that resided within her boundaries, was something Crozier, more than anyone else, would be familiar with.  “Who’s ready to face the firing squad?”</p><p>Edward’s response was to straighten his shoulders, a stern set to his jaw.  At his side, Jopson’s mouth thinned.  “Sir,” was all Jopson said, and Crozier managed to dredge up a faint smile for him, for both of them, but even from where he stood Edward could see that it did not reach his eyes.  He averted his gaze at the observation—<em>dead eyes, dead souls, Lord God, had they really survived at all?</em>—and his own fingers wrapped around the hand still cradled against his own, holding fast.  He had let go of so many things in that place, too many; he was not about to release the one good thing to have survived it all.  The familiar weight of Jopson’s body resting against his side was a pathetically welcome one, grounding when all the sight of England and her people did was unmoor him. Unable to wrap his arm around that too-thin waist the way he wanted, Edward settled for holding tighter where he could, hoping against hope that by doing so he could prevent them from floating away.</p><p><em>The firing squad indeed</em>, he thought blankly, dread curling low in the pit of his stomach as faces became close enough to discern individually.  He could almost go blind from the novelty of so many strangers gathered in one place, he reckoned, when for so long it had been the same welcome and unwelcome faces, the same dying souls, the same relentless monotony of the ice.  He hoped, as he watched the gangplank lower, as his eyes caught on two well-dressed women standing in the crowd, that the captain’s words would not prove to be too prophetic, but hope was a fallacy, and England a stranger Edward was no longer sure he knew.  If their safety net was the fickle nature of the Admiralty, well.</p><p>Perhaps it would have been better for Franklin’s lost expedition to remain lost after all.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The gold was an eyesore.  Too bright, too ostentatious, too <em>much</em>.  Edward wondered, distantly, if a man could forget colour after not seeing it for so long.  Standing before the Admiralty now, their epaulettes gleaming in a room too thick with the weight of all that had passed and all that would remain unspoken, the gold seemed to mock him—a pretty lie that Edward found he had not the stomach for anymore.</p><p>His mind flashed back to years past, of consuming poison in a great room, that same gold on his shoulders, worn with pride and then ignored in favour of a pair of pale eyes over the heads of the gathered officers.  He winced at the fool he was then, tripping over himself to try and endear himself to a table of corpses.  How he had managed to endear himself to the few men who mattered, despite his own shortcomings, was nothing short of a miracle.</p><p>He did not thank God for it.  Instead, Edward merely shifted his stance until his shoulder brushed that of the man stood next to him in the great chamber, a solid presence—an invaluable one.  Thomas Jopson did not wear the uniform of the lieutenant he was, but he wore the rank in the tilt of his chin, in the set of his shoulders, a blessed reminder of humanity and kindness amongst a crew that had grown to forget such things.</p><p><em>And you would have counted yourself among them once, Ned</em>, Edward thought darkly.  The urge to look back presented itself, but he ignored it.  His own accusation rang clear in his mind. <em>You would leave our captain with that devil?</em></p><p>They would have, and so Edward would leave them with the devil that was their own guilt.  It was a powerful thing, he knew; after all, he felt it himself—a cloying, sickly creature that lived in his chest and mewled at him every time he thought of Jopson looking at him with anger in that tent, accusing him of the very thing that Le Vesconte had broached: abandonment, the dereliction of duty. </p><p>His hair too long, his cheeks too hollow, his skin cracked, Thomas Jopson had sat across from him and there had been none of the warmth from the ships, none of the coyness, no trace of anything soft or welcoming when he had issued his condemnation as the cold, hard fact that it was.   He’d looked at Edward as if he were a stranger, a monster more grotesque than that which had hunted them.  <em>What you’re suggesting would be a death sentence for those men.</em></p><p>And Edward, convinced of his own righteousness, convinced that this had been the only way, the <em>best</em> way forward, had not even denied it.</p><p>
  <em>Some, surely.  But not for all of us.</em>
</p><p>A pitiful notion, one that had danced under the guise of pragmatism.  Did that make him better?  Worse?  He did not know, and as the voices of the Admiralty floated over his head, he found himself wondering if it was too late to care.</p><p>He did, either way.  More fool him.</p><p>Ross’ hair gleamed red under the dim light of the room as he looked at them, his face gaunt and unnaturally pale, his eyes never leaving the captain’s impassive form.  He wore the expression of a man who had seen one too many ghosts, and who did not know if his eyes were yet to be believed.  Pity escaped Edward in the form of a slow blink.  Uncaring of the audience behind them, and knowing the one in front could not see, he dragged one ungloved finger against the skin of Jopson’s wrist, and did not react when he felt Jopson sigh; did not react when he felt an answering press.</p><p>He wondered if the Admiralty found them wanting, the way the men in Franklin’s great cabin had once found Edward.  Wondered if, perhaps, there was some part of <em>them</em> that would have preferred the expedition stayed lost: a beautiful tragedy, a romantic death in the cold in pursuit of glory for queen and empire.</p><p>Heat—<em>hatred</em>—momentarily disrupted the numbness in Edward’s chest.  Teeth, bloodied and littered with flesh, flashed in his mind.  They had been hunted, mercilessly so, by something beyond the belief and comprehension of the men seeking to pass judgement on them for their failures, and yet it hadn’t been the supernatural that had ultimately sent so many to their graves; rather, it had been the wretchedness and greed and selfishness of men, of glory-seekers.</p><p>And Edward, who had once been one of those glory-seekers, who had once dreamed of the prestige the Passage would bring him, who had clung to navy regulation and protocol with all that he had in the vain hope that it would provide relief, answers, <em>succour</em>, now wished to turn to his left, to bury his face in Jopson’s dark hair and forget about the others in the room, to forget Le Vesconte, the captains who had rescued them, and the captains and admirals who stood before them now, so eager to pretend that their authority meant anything Edward, to Crozier, to Jopson—to any of them.</p><p>He did not.  Could not.  So instead he stood firm and resolute, his greatcoat a weighty thing on his shoulders, and listened with dead eyes as men who would never understand, no matter their own experiences, attempted to pretend their petty judgement meant <em>anything</em> to the men who had survived that place.</p><p>“A full court martial is technically required when a ship is lost,” Ross said apologetically, unknowingly echoing Edward’s own words from years ago, back when they’d still had four walls around their ears and a roof over their heads.  He bit back a wince and wondered when his strict adherence to navy protocol had given way to whatever tired thing it was that dwelled in his chest now.</p><p><em>Probably about the time you beat a man within an inch of his life for insisting you follow the captain’s orders</em>, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jopson’s whispered in his mind.  He hid a grimace, keeping his shoulders straight, only the slightest bowing of his head betraying the thoughts running amok in his mind.</p><p>Jopson cast a look at him out of the corner of his eyes.  Edward met it, as much as he could, less slack-jawed than he had been that first time, but all the more grateful for the silent prompt when he realized that the Admiralty had still been speaking, outlining plans and trading polite words with the captain, whose face was becoming tighter and more pinched with each exchange.</p><p>“Mr. Jopson,” the rapidly-balding John Barrow Jr intoned severely, looking up from a list—one containing their names, Edward realized, and likely the same one that <em>Intrepid’s</em> Lieutenant Osborn and <em>Pioneer’s </em>Lieutenant Cator had been hastily scribbling down as the ships had clustered together on King William Island, only to pause in shock and horror when they realized there was no one else coming, that they had brought too many ships for too few souls.</p><p>And there would have been even fewer souls were it not for—</p><p>“Lieutenant Jopson,” Edward countered firmly, as he had when McClure of the HMS <em>Investigator</em> had done the same.  He could still remember how it had felt to smile and laugh and be <em>happy</em>, even for just a moment, as he’d watched Fitzjames present Jopson with that fated slip of parchment.  Something tight had eased in his chest watching Jopson’s face, the man caught off guard as he so rarely was, and the joy that had suffused throughout Edward’s body had been enough to propel him out of his seat with a lightness and warmth that he had not remembered feeling in years.</p><p>The Admiralty clearly did not feel the same.  A shadow passed over Ross’ face for a moment—<em>sorrow this, sorrow that</em>; an unkind thought Edward did not try to shake nonetheless—but the smile he favoured Jopson with was still filled with sincerity, for all that it was also shaky and uncertain.  Edward had to remember for a moment that the younger Ross knew Jopson, had known Jopson longer than he himself, had <em>sailed</em> with Jopson, even, what must have felt like several lifetimes ago.  <em>That</em> expedition had been a success, propelling James Ross forward in his own career, and Edward hoped that the smile meant that they would have Ross’ support behind the promotion, as unorthodox as it might have been.</p><p>The other gathered officers were less kind, their disapproval evident.</p><p>“An unusual decision,” John Ross said upon hearing it, voice heavy with censure and given weight by the promotion he himself had received while searching for them, though if Snow and McClure and the others were to be believed Ross had been more of a hindrance than a help, the other ships having to provide food to Ross’ scurvy-beset crew when the <em>Felix </em>had begun to falter.</p><p>Edward frowned.  Glanced quickly, surreptitiously, at Jopson, whose countenance still bore traces of the selfsame disease—the one that had almost claimed his life.  On the far left, George Back snorted, ruddy face twisting in a scowl as he looked at Jopson with obvious disapproval.</p><p>“A steward!” he declared.  “It seems navy protocol is to be discarded whenever the captains feel it most convenient.”  Condescension poured thick from every syllable, and Edward felt some of the numbness and apathy that had plagued him melt away, replaced with the sort of rage that had fuelled his confrontation with the surviving men in that hell of their own making, and he was stepping forward almost before he could stop himself, only to be held back by Crozier, whose own eyes had narrowed dangerously.</p><p>“Our situation was <em>unusual</em>, gentlemen,” the captain said, words laced with a derision and contempt that could have felled kings.  “I do not know if you’ve noticed, but we are barely twenty men, <em>twenty</em>, where we were once over one-hundred.  I do not exaggerate when I say that were it not for Lieutenant Jopson, it would have been our bones you’d found in the Arctic.”  His lip curled, and he let out a snort of his own, fixing John Ross with a narrow-eyed look.  “If you’d even bothered to look that far.”  He surveyed the rest of the men, who shifted uncomfortably.  Lady Franklin’s companion had let out a little gasp, one hand fluttering up to her mouth to stifle it.  Only Lady Franklin herself remained firm, her eyes fixed resolutely on them.  Crozier tilted his head to her briefly, his tone softening from its acerbic bite when he added, “My own bones would never have made it off the damn ship were it not for him.  As it stands, the bodies of many good men still lie unaccounted for regardless.”</p><p>Silence, the kind that made even the most formidable of men uncomfortable, reigned.  Edward, used to such silences and worse, remained still, mouth parted as he concentrated on his own breathing, but he could see the Admiralty shifting in their seats and, more to the point, could see the smallest of ticks in Jopson’s jaw.</p><p>He wished for the briefest, silliest of moments, that they were back on those ships.  <em>Pathetic</em>, he berated himself, but the longing persisted, something in him aching for the simplicity of those early days before the creature, before the march, before command, before death had become so commonplace as to appear normal.</p><p>His hands twitched at his side, and he licked his lips, but he squared his shoulders and met the collective gaze of the Admiralty head-on, adding whatever weight he had to the sharp challenge of Crozier’s stare and Jopson’s smooth, blank, professional countenance.</p><p>Opposite George Back, one of the men leaned forward, peering at them consideringly.  “Lieutenant Jopson,” Frederick Beechey said, dark eyes earnest but intent, his voice softer than those of the other men present.  There were still traces of colour in his hair and a youthful innocence persisted in the lightness of his expression.  His face, though sagging slightly and lined with age, must have been fine when he was younger, and there was a kindness in the twist of his mouth and the way he inclined his head at Jopson.</p><p><em>This man’s namesake was the gravesite of three of our men</em>, Edward thought, but he allowed his shoulders to relax slightly.</p><p>“Scraping the bottom of the barrel, I see,” Back muttered, and Crozier turned on him like a beast sensing its prey.  Once, Edward might have tried to hold him back, would have cited protocol and hierarchy and said something inane about how Back was technically in the right, but now he squared up as well, with even Le Vesconte, who had been silent up until that point, stiffening and looking at the Admiralty with something akin to anger in his expression.</p><p>“See here—” Le Vesconte started as Back’s eyes narrowed and Edward’s spine straightened impossibly further, but he never got a chance to finish.</p><p>“Enough!” Lady Franklin cut in, her voice loud and firm.  Dwarfed by the dark fabrics of mourning, her pale face turned sharply towards the gathered men and she rose to her feet with an upward tilt of her chin.  Her companion followed suit a moment later, her posture less sure, more hesitant, but she planted herself firmly at Lady Franklin’s side, a delicate contrast to the woman whom Captain William Penney of the brig HMS <em>Lady Franklin</em> had claimed single-handedly ensured their rescue.</p><p>George Back paused at her interruption.  It seemed to give Lady Franklin strength, for she drew herself up to her full height, her shoulders squared as determinedly as any man’s.  Edward’s eyes caught on the way her hands trembled.  He did the honourable thing and politely averted his gaze.  “Can we not allow these men a moment of rest?”</p><p>A myriad of expressions and looks met her words.  From where he was seated, Frederick Beechey turned mournful eyes onto the gathered officers—or what remained of them—and their rescuers.  Captains Austin and Ommanney, who had seen the state of the men shortly after their retrieval, looked stern, and Snow and Penney and the others seemed sobered.  Edward’s eyes caught on James Ross again, who could not seem to look away from Crozier.</p><p>“<em>The captain and I sailed with Ross to the Antarctic,</em>” Edward remembered Jopson telling him once, fingers brushing deliberately against Edward’s own as he passed along the bottle of whiskey.  <em>“They are dear friends.” </em>There was no coy smile on Jopson’s face now, his countenance as severe as Edward’s was blank, the both of them flanking Crozier in silent support—his men, the both of them, no matter what was to come, and if that meant standing up to the whole bloody fool Admiralty, then, well.</p><p>They’d seen worse things than the inside of an English prison block.</p><p>“Of course, Lady Franklin,” Ross the younger spoke then, his voice hushed, subdued, unable to do anything but acquiesce in the face of so many ruined ghosts.  William Parry cleared his throat, spoke of rooms, of board, of a place to rest their heads as the cogs of the Discovery Service slowly began moving again.</p><p>Edward would have straightened had his body not already been as stiff as it could possibly be.  He did not turn his head from the parade of uniforms and their uncertain eyes, explorers and relics alike who did not seem to know what to do with the wretches that stood before them; of the complete and utter breakdown of proper English rank and propriety that their survival forced them all to acknowledge.</p><p>Lady Franklin approached with her companion, unshed tears glistening in her eyes.  She stopped in front of them as the members of the Arctic Council began making their inglorious retreats.  The men bowed their heads respectfully, the way they had once done for her husband—perhaps even <em>more</em> respectfully than they had done for him, Edward thought.  Once, it might have amused him.  Now, he just thought of a body in pieces and a large funeral held for the tattered scraps of man’s great ambitions.</p><p>“Francis,” Lady Franklin said.</p><p>“Lady Franklin,” Crozier replied.  His eyes shifted to the younger woman, who was looking at him imploringly, as if searching for something.  The captain’s expression did not change as he said: “Miss Cracroft.”</p><p>Something dimmed in the woman’s face, but she plastered on a shaky smile.  Jopson sighed at Edward’s side, the sound too quiet for anyone else to hear.  Watching the two of them, the captain and the woman who should have been his lady, Edward felt as though he was witnessing a goodbye, old words flowing through his mind unbidden.</p><p><em>Lament as if I were dead, over my grave.  These are my last words to you.</em>  Edward thought of two ships setting sail from the safety of Greenhithe containing the souls of over a hundred hopeful men and the weary, determined hopes of an empire; of one-hundred and thirty-one <em>farewells</em><em>.</em></p><p>Miss Cracroft would lament her uncle and whatever broken thing lay between her and Crozier, Edward knew, as Lady Franklin would lament her husband, and Edward would thank a God he was no longer sure existed that she would never know the truth of the man’s death.  She would never know the role John Franklin’s arrogance and hubris had played in their suffering, and no one present would be the one to enlighten her, or anyone else for that matter.  Franklin would remain, through his death, a hero in the eyes of the English people, and perhaps the lie would comfort his widow and she would find a set of bleached bones to return to a conqueror's monument.  Miss Cracroft would have no such bones, but whatever it was she had been hoping for—whatever the regrets that made her hands and mouth quiver—lay buried in the frozen ground as surely as the man to whom she’d lost Crozier.</p><p><em>Hide him in the landscape, Edward</em>.  <em>Make him invisible.</em></p><p>Edward set his jaw.  Closed his eyes briefly.  Remembered, for a moment, the sight of a good man hunched over himself in the captain’s cabin, hair hanging lank over his face; an enemy who had become more than a friend and more than a brother, and whose loss had etched permanent marks of pain into the captain’s face.  A man who had wanted to be seen, and who never would be again.</p><p>Fitzjames’ bones had been spared the fate of others unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the mutineers. Edward, who had seen and never said a word, who had shared his own knowing looks with the man whose rank and title had been taken up for debate by a room full of fools who could never in a thousand years hope to understand, had made certain of that.</p><p>That same man stood stunned beside him now, as though surprised they would defend the rank English rule would have denied him and saddened by all he was bearing witness to between the captain and the woman who, if rumour were to be believed, Crozier had set sail for in the first place.  Edward’s brow furrowed.  Subconsciously, his hand drifted down, hidden by the weight of the greatcoat, to flutter briefly over Jopson’s thigh.</p><p>A small thing, now.</p><p>Not small enough.</p><p>He wanted to rest, and could not remember what having the luxury to do so felt like.</p><p>Ross, the younger, exhaled from somewhere else in the room.  Edward did not look at him, did not look <em>for </em>him, barely paid attention to the plans being laid out, the empty platitudes the Admiralty would extend to them.  His head had turned, his attentions caught by eyes the colour of melting ice.</p><p>This time he did not blink, and together they turned towards their mooring point, the man they had sworn to serve.  <em>Sir</em>, Jopson’s voice whispered, a ghost of years past.  <em>Consider it done, sir.  Right away, sir.</em></p><p>
  <em>You needn’t worry for a thing, sir.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ve got you, Captain.  You can count on that, sir.</em>
</p><p>A fitting thing, then, to know that their captain had them, too.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>That first night in London Edward Little buried his face against the hollow of Thomas Jopson’s throat, breathing in a scent that had become as crucial to him as air whilst Jopson’s fingers tangled in hair that felt too short, too—<em>gone.  </em>The walls of the boarding house were thin, too thin for what he wanted but was still too exhausted to do, so instead he merely revelled in the presence of the man underneath him, pressing as close as he dared.</p><p>Jopson allowed it.  In the silence between the noises of London’s nightlife, Edward wondered if Jopson needed it as much as he.</p><p>“Edward,” Jopson murmured, but Edward swallowed the rest of his words with a kiss that he did not deserve but was just selfish enough to take anyway.  It was bold, more than he would have done unprompted on the ships, but as Jopson softened under his touch he found he could not regret it; found he craved the soft sigh that escaped from between them, drinking it in greedily as he did everything else about this man.  The creature in his chest, a nebulous thing, preened and crooned and <em>wanted</em>, the harsh edges that had formed in the Arctic thawing the slightest amount as Jopson slipped chilled hands through the opening of his shirt to press against his skin.</p><p>“Come with me,” Edward said—a plea, for all that it was said simply, bluntly, only a hint of his desperation bleeding into the words.  “Please.”</p><p>Jopson hummed.  Edward could not see him in the dark, but he could feel the exhaustion in Jopson’s body; could feel how hard the other man was struggling to stay awake.  He did not ask again, but he did lean down for another kiss before pressing close once more, offering warmth, security, anything and everything he had within him to give.  A hand came to rest at the nape of his neck, the sensation a comforting thing, the fingers sliding absently into the wispy hairs there, something he never thought he would have the privilege of feeling again.</p><p>When he spoke, Jopson’s words were little more than a hushed sigh, but the weight of them drove the air from Edward’s lungs and left him feeling unmoored regardless.</p><p>“Show me the countryside, then, Edward Little.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>A man will do foolish, daring things when faced with death.  Perhaps that was why Edward had said as he did, promised as he had.  “I have a place in the countryside,” he’d told Jopson’s insignificant weight, the thrice-damned silk scrap to salvation still clutched in his hand as they’d made their final trek through purgatory.  “Come with me.”</p><p>Crozier had looked at him and done the honourable thing, pretending he hadn’t heard.  Behind them, the remaining men had trudged, trusting their lives to his judgement.  Had the rage in Edward’s chest not still been so terrible perhaps he would have pitied them for their folly, his judgement an insufficient thing in most respects, but as it stood, he had no room left in his heart for pity, for anything other than the dogged need to fulfil the rash promise he had made to the man walking bloody and beaten at his side, and the weighted one to the man half-dead on his back.</p><p>“Come with me,” he’d repeated through cracked lips.  “Come with me.”</p><p><em>Live</em>, he’d thought.  Begged.  <em>Live with me.  Live without me.  Just live.</em></p><p>Jopson had said nothing, but he’d kept breathing, and Edward had trudged on, pretending that was answer enough.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>That they owed their lives to Lady Franklin was readily apparent.  Her dogged determination had breathed life to a cause that the men she’d petitioned had deemed hopeless, a waste of time and resources, and when they had finished indulging her, when she could no longer shame them into compliance, she had redoubled her efforts, gone over their heads, poured her own resources into a rescue that even the captain’s closest friends had deemed fruitless.</p><p>It was—it was <em>unexpected</em>.  Edward, who had no wife, whose father was a navy man and whose mother cared but not to the point of her own personal ruin, could not fathom of a woman who would go so far and risk so much for something so uncertain.  Had he an impression of Lady Franklin to compare the reality of her to, he was sure he would have had the impression readily corrected; as it stood, all he had known of Lady Franklin beforehand had come from Franklin’s own fond recollections and from secrets and bitter recollections that he was sure he’d had no business knowing.</p><p>He had thought, with her husband dead, that she would have washed her hands of the whole affair and retired to the country to mourn.  Instead, laden with guilt, with grief, she continued to fight for them, claiming that it would have been what her husband wanted.</p><p>Crozier matched her efforts with only the barest traces of resentment showing through.</p><p>“The Lady and I can delay the court martial for a time, Edward, but anything longer than a few months would be a miracle, and I don’t mind saying I don’t believe in those much anymore.”  After all, even Lady Franklin could not stand in the path of <em>navy protocol </em>forever, Crozier had added with an unpleasantly malicious edge that Edward had not heard since the days when his blood had run thick with whiskey.</p><p>He shivered at the memory even now, remembering the bite of the cold as he’d made his ignoble trudge back to <em>Terror</em>, stolen contraband clutched tight like a lifeline.  Shivered again remembering the burn of Jopson’s hands, his body, as the steward had divested him of his sopping uniform that night, the warmth of him a searing line of heat-pain that Edward had been helpless against.</p><p><em>Terror</em> had been his to command soon after, her weight heavy upon his shoulders.  He’d abandoned the pistol on the slanted table the moment he had been able to, the air frozen in his lungs as Jopson and MacDonald and Fitzjames pretended they were not observing his struggle.  Edward was under no delusions as to his own charms, but he had done his duty, performed as he must; had, with Jopson’s aid, with Jopson’s knowledge and his own, kept the ship and the crew going.  <em>Lieutenant</em>, the men had said, ignorant of the battle Crozier was fighting behind closed doors—the battle only the few of them privy to its reality could commend.</p><p><em>Captain</em>, Jopson’s tired eyes had whispered, the sentiment echoed in MacDonald’s sympathetic gaze, in Fitzjames’ haunted countenance.</p><p><em>I don’t want it, not like this</em>, Edward remembered thinking.  <em>Take it back.  I relinquish it.</em>  But he couldn’t, he hadn’t, and so he had shouldered the captaincy, the secrecy, and only when Crozier had emerged to a cacophony of screams and hellfire had he returned it, grateful as they stood among the dead and the damned and the complete and utter <em>ruin</em> of Fitzjames’ <em>Carnivale</em> that it was no longer his, and all the more guilty for feeling thus.</p><p><em>Lieutenant</em>, they’d continued to call him.  <em>Commander</em>, their actions had said, later.  <em>Captain</em>, Crozier’s beaten, exhausted expression had conveyed as he’d placed the lives of those who remained firmly in Edward’s hands before being led away.</p><p>“Edward,” Jopson said to him now, taking up one clenched hand and pressing it against his own cheek, freshly shaven, as their carriage rattled towards the city limits. </p><p>“Lieutenant Jopson,” Edward replied, the words hushed.  Jopson’s eyes did not dance as they had in the underbelly of <em>Terror</em>, but there was an understanding in them, a tired light that reflected in the way he turned his head, lips brushing against the exposed skin of Edward’s wrist.</p><p>Vainly, perhaps naively, Edward hoped their destination could bring those those pale eyes a sense of peace, a recovery sorely needed.  Distantly, and sceptically, he wondered if the younger Ross hoped that by opening his house to their captain, Crozier could achieve a measure of the same.</p><p>The man Edward had been before, the man who had filled his days and his head with operas and music from classical composers long since gone to earth, might have believed it so.  The man he was now, who grew jagged Arctic ice in his chest, shrewdly whispered that there was no chance for that sort of peace—not with someone who had not seen as they had, who had not experienced that place and lived despite it all.</p><p>Fitzjames was gone and buried, and for all their affections, James Clark Ross and Miss Cracroft would never be able to understand the things that had come to pass in the Arctic.  The memory of Jopson laying still as a corpse in the cabin of <em>Resolute</em> rose to the forefront of his mind.  There was no abrupt reminder that he had almost had to face the return to London with that same sort of loneliness—Edward knew damn well that he almost had, that the man sitting across from him with exhaustion written into his eyes and a sombre expression nearly hadn’t come home at all.  Edward had stood over so many graves, helped to move so many bodies both living and dead; it did not escape his notice for even a <em>fraction</em> of a second that Jopson could have been one of them.</p><p>He was lucky.  He did not deserve it, not even a little, but Edward was lucky all the same, and he would not squander it.</p><p>Edward leaned forward then, pressing his forehead against Jopson’s, breathing in the life of him as he settled one hand against the nape of Jopson’s neck, holding him close.  His eyes slid shut, and he knew, then, that there would be no peace for Crozier like Edward had in front of him now.</p><p>His heart ached.  His body echoed the sensation.</p><p>“Home, then,” Jopson said calmly, pressing a small kiss to the corner of Edward’s mouth.  Edward opened his eyes.  The ache subsided, if only slightly.</p><p>“Home.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The reminders of the man he had been before the navy were made stark in the little country house he had built for himself shortly after he’d received his promotion to lieutenant—a strange marriage of the Second Empire style and neoclassical, the results of which he was sure would have made Vitruvius weep.</p><p>“You could have built it bigger, dear—this is hardly Hornsey, and I hear the Discovery Service is easy on the purse,” his mother had tutted, but Edward had just shrugged, happy to sacrifice unused living space if it meant a larger garden and more room for the stables.  In the back of his mind, when the rank of lieutenant had been as green as the Emerald Isle, there had been a thought towards making it bigger, a thought towards having areas of the house where he could host other members of the Admiralty he had thought, distantly, of one day being included in, but the idea of inviting strangers into his private dwelling had been an unpleasant one.  So he’d kept it small and intimate, and let the design and the craftsmanship speak to its quality rather than its sheer size.</p><p><em>I am afraid,</em> he’d imagined himself saying when prompted to host gatherings he did not wish to <em>attend</em> let alone oversee, <em>that I simply haven’t the space</em>.</p><p>He was glad for the size now, not that it mattered.  Jopson’s eyes were half-lidded as the two of them all but spilled out of the carriage, their meagre belongings limited to two half-filled trunks.  Edward had grunted at the idea of two when one would have sufficed, but Jopson’s soft chide, his quiet reminder that one trunk would raise eyebrows over eyes that already rested heavily upon them, had quelled Edward’s protests and filled him with no small amount of censure towards himself.</p><p>“And where would I be without you, Mr. Jopson?” he had said, the words little more than an exhausted sigh, and Jopson, <em>Lieutenant </em>Jopson, had smiled thinly, sadly, and turned back to packing what passed as their worldly goods with a shake of his head.</p><p>There was no smile on Jopson’s face now, his countenance carefully blank—an expression that Edward was learning meant exhaustion, pure and simple.  A commonality, he supposed, though whereas Edward tended to hunch over, Tom Jopson held himself all the straighter, as if determined not to let anyone—</p><p><em>Ah, </em>Edward thought, before rapidly busying himself with unloading the trunks and paying the driver.  It wasn’t a revelation, not truly, but there had never been time to consider the depths of it until now.  Consideration, thought, they had been luxuries, and Edward was glad a bed awaited them, if only so that he did not yet have to face the knowledge that, even after the months spent at sea as they made their slow return to England, he did not yet know what it was to have free time; the indulgence of idle thought.</p><p>“Mother always wished for a garden like this,” Jopson murmured amongst the muted colours of the night as the sound of wheels on gravel faded into the distance.  Edward watched him quietly, aching.  Then, he held out one hand, sure his relief when Jopson accepted it was clear in the way his shoulders relaxed a fraction, in the tightness of his grip before he forgot himself.</p><p>There was no time for a tour, and no inclination towards one even if such time had existed.  Jopson followed Edward wordlessly, and they abandoned their trunks at the front with nary a second of hesitation before making their way up to the bedroom, as dark and silent as the rest of the house.</p><p>“Let me,” Jopson murmured in the blackness, his hands finding Edward’s face, lingering there for the briefest of moments before they dropped to his collar, to his chest, nimble fingers making quick work of his clothing.  Edward did not protest, did not say <em>you do not have to</em>; instead, all he did was reach out and touch where he could, adding lingering caresses of his own to Jopson’s skin and allowing the other man to manoeuvre him as he would.</p><p>A soothing ritual.  A grounding one.  One Edward had performed in reverse on <em>Resolute</em>, when Jopson had been too ill to tend to himself and Edward had not been able to bear the thought of leaving his side.  He was not as skilled as Jopson, nor as practiced, but, stripped to the waist, he put what he had learned into effect now, until he could feel Jopson’s bare skin against his own; until he could hold the other man as close as he reasonably could, no longer hindered by the fear that someone might see, might overhear.</p><p>Jopson sighed against his collarbone.  Edward tightened his arms.  Together, they fell towards the bed—soft, so much softer than anything he had felt since before they had departed from Greenhithe a lifetime ago—and Edward tried to keep his breathing even as Jopson pressed up against his chest.  The shadows hid the slightness of their frames, the way ribs still sat too close to the surface of their skin, but Edward thought he would have loved this man had he been nothing but bleached bones in the too-long days of the north, and the thought had him turning, rolling, pressing Jopson gently into the mattress.</p><p>Hands found his hair, not stroking but just tangling in the strands and resting, <em>holding</em>, until the hours began to pass them by, marked by the position of the crescent moon that Edward could now see in their south-facing window.  Fatigue pulled at every fibre of his being, but sleep was illusive.  Edward, having moved so that he was now pressed against Jopson’s back, hummed a low tune, his fingers—ever allergic to the very thought of idleness—stroking lackadaisical patterns against Jopson’s wrist.</p><p>“It’s very soft, is it not?” Jopson queried, blasé, when sleep had passed them by for too long.  Edward shifted, lifted his head until he could see Jopson’s hair—just barely illuminated by the slightest traces of moonlight—and exhaled.</p><p>“It is, yes.”</p><p>Wordlessly, Jopson rose, collecting their blankets and pillows as he did so, and with the efficiency of a man used to making do he arranged them on the floor before folding his legs underneath himself and holding out a hand for Edward, who took it without hesitation.  The wood was hard under his body, barely softened by the woven blanket that Jopson had laid out, but he let out a small grunt of satisfaction as he laid within the small nest of sheets and pillows, immediately encircling his arms around Jopson when the other man settled once more against his chest.</p><p>Jopson’s breathing was slow to steady, the horrible death rattle from the island blessedly absent.  Edward held him as he had hidden away in the storeroom on <em>Terror</em>, on the island, on the ship, wherever Jopson would allow it, and when Jopson’s breathing at last evened out, when Edward could feel the body on top of his soften and relax with sleep, he allowed himself to drift as well.</p><p>Jopson lived.  Edward himself lived.</p><p>Curled around each other on the hard wooden floor, Edward told himself that it was enough.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They explored the house the next day, cataloguing the rooms and the furnishings within, some that Edward himself had arranged prior to their setting sail and others that his sister Janey had clearly thought suited the place.  Her touches made it seem less austere, more lived in despite the fact that not a soul had resided permanently within these walls before now, and Edward appreciated it, the line of his mouth soft and his lips parted contentedly as he watched Jopson survey his new domain, running fingers along the polished woods and the ticking clocks, weaving between tables and chairs and other such furnishings.</p><p>“Are you a clockmaker or a sailor, Lieutenant Little?” he teased lightly, lips curved into the faintest of smiles as he slipped past the third clock, its hands still and silent; unwound.  Edward, stood by the mantle, did not miss the hardness that still lingered in the depths of Jopson’s eyes, in the corners of his mouth, but then again, he was sure Jopson had not failed to notice the hardness in Edward’s own stance, either, or the way neither of them had been able to relax since they’d peeled themselves off of the floor that morning.</p><p>“Not much of either these days, I’m afraid,” he said, returning the smile.  He was rewarded with the briefest incline of Jopson’s head, and then with a lingering kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth when Jopson brushed by, hands resting ever so lightly on the lapels of Edward’s vest before he moved forward to stoke the fire.</p><p>“You have them, then?” Jopson inquired, still in that same light tone.  Edward nodded before passing Jopson the neatly folded pile that he had produced from their trunks, which lay propped open by the entrance to the sitting room.  Jopson thanked him with another fleeting smile, and Edward took a brief moment to admire the sight of Jopson in his borrowed clothes—just this side of too big, but then again, Edward himself was facing much the same problem.</p><p>“I opened the window,” Edward said.  Jopson paused.  Then, with a sharp nod of his head, he threw the clothing into the open fire, watching with a hard expression as the flames began licking immediately at the faded and patched fabrics.</p><p>In the sanctity of their home, Edward heard the screams of the dying men as Fitzjames’ <em>Carnviale</em> collapsed around them; remembered the smell of burning paper and cloth and <em>flesh</em> and the sight of too many charred corpses lined up neatly against the snow and ice.  Fitzjames’ grief had been a tangible thing then, and Edward had watched with a cracking heart as <em>Erebus’ </em>captain had curled over the bodies before turning his head away.  <em>A command wanted once and now wanted no longer</em>, Edward had thought, and part of him had wanted to reach out, to offer some kind of assurance, but he’d remembered his words to Fitzjames before <em>Carnivale</em>, his tired rebukes and remarks about supplies and his own unwillingness to participate in a moment of levity that Fitzjames had clearly seen the men were in need of, and he had held back.  He had allowed Crozier to step forward, to comfort, to share the burden that command brought, and he had returned to <em>Terror</em>, returned to <em>Jopson</em>, the two of them hidden away, chasing whatever relief they could find from the black cloud that had descended over them all.</p><p><em>“Hell is full of good meanings and wishes,”</em> he’d told Jopson, his hands skimming up the other man’s chest, dipping under unbuttoned vests and loosened shirts.  It had been quick, desperate, dirty, and they had walked away shaky and grounded both, death clinging to the wool of their coats with the same persistence as smoke.</p><p>There was a tick in Jopson’s jaw.  Edward reached out, resting a gentle hand on Jopson’s hip and pulling him close, until Jopson’s head could fall slowly against his shoulder.</p><p>That Jopson allowed himself the comfort eased something in Edward’s chest.  Trust, once shattered, was a hard thing to rebuild.</p><p>Edward’s mind flickered briefly to Fitzjames again, then to Le Vesconte.  For a moment, he wondered where it was that Fitzjames’ old friend had gone, but he dismissed those thoughts as quickly as he dared, before a shadow could cast itself over his face.</p><p>When the stench of death and burning cloth became too much to bear, Jopson pulled away.</p><p>“Tea, then?” he asked.  Edward nodded, walked back to the trunk, and pulled out the tin of Assam tea that Crozier had pressed into his hands just the other day—“<em>courtesy of the Rosses, Edward, as I haven’t exactly had the time to go out myself; Thomas has a fondness for it</em>”—before handing it to Jopson.</p><p>They didn’t talk about it for the rest of the morning.  The flavour of the tea was too strong for him now, an unpleasant burn down his throat after so long gone without, but he drank it gratefully nonetheless, and they sat quietly in the kitchen with the windows throw open until the sun sat high in the sky and the birds sang their unfamiliar tunes in the trees.</p><p>“Let me show you the gardens,” Edward said quietly.  Jopson nodded.</p><p>“Please.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Three nights in Edward woke with a start to the sound of ragged, pained breathing, once a strange occurrence but now as familiar as the air in his lungs and the gentle roll of a ship at sea.  Equally familiar was the weight against his chest, and the sensation of Thomas Jopson’s hands running up his flank, along his arms, into his hair: a reassurance, one much needed.</p><p>“Thomas,” he said, feeling the way Jopson shuddered against him.  He couldn’t see Jopson’s expression, but he didn’t need to, and it was the work of a moment to entwine their bodies until no space remained between them, a mimicry of the the voyage home and the berth they had shared.</p><p>He didn’t ask, and Jopson didn’t share.  When Edward drifted back into an uneasy sleep and woke up hours later with blood painting the inside of of his eyelids, it was to Jopson’s soft whispers and gentle hands against his face, and the hardness of the floor once again at his back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“I saw you and the men leave,” Jopson said to him over their small morning meal—a simple affair, but Edward found he had yet to regain a taste for anything more complicated than the basics, despite all the dreams he’d had on the ice of a proper English breakfast every time he’d forced down another tin of Goldner’s. </p><p>Distracted and still only half-awake, it took a moment for Jopson’s words to register in their entirety, but once they did Edward, who had returned with the captain in tow and death in his wake to see Jopson laying like a sacrificial lamb to the elements, found he had even less of an appetite.  He had suspected the reason behind Jopson’s frantic hands in the dark, behind the way his eyes traced Edward’s every movement during the day, missing nothing but expecting <em>something</em>, and hearing it spoken aloud—</p><p>“Tom,” he said, helplessly, the bread and honey abandoned.  Thomas’ mouth curved into the faintest of smiles and his eyes, which used to sparkle and dance above the heads of those too foolish—or not foolish enough—to look, the same eyes Edward had watched grow hard and cold and sad and distant, seemed to soften a fraction. </p><p>Quietly, Thomas rose and moved over to refill Edward’s teacup, but when Edward reached out a hand to gently encircle his wrist, Thomas stepped closer without hesitation, allowing Edward to bring him close, his arms settling around Thomas’ waist in a loose embrace.  Had he still cared for the sensibilities of proper British society, he might have criticized his own conduct; as it stood, there was no point in criticizing this, not when his sins were so monumental as to overshadow this particular indiscretion.</p><p>“I thought I came back too late,” Edward confessed.  Thomas, whose hands had risen to rest against Edward’s chest, curled his fingers against the navy blue fabric of Edward’s vest.  He breathed in once.  Twice.  The second, Edward noted, was more ragged.  Then:</p><p>“I’m not so sure you didn’t.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It was a cruel thing for the sun to blaze so hot in a land made of such cold, Edward thought numbly as he marched, shivering from the chill, from the way his body was sweating underneath the slops he wore, the ones he had torn from <em>Terror’s</em> carcass in the hopes that they would keep his own going for just a little longer, just a little bit further.</p><p><em>Forward</em>, he thought, a command echoed by the man who walked to his left, whose dark grey hair stuck to his forehead in great clumps, whose face had turned an alarming shade of red.</p><p>They did not stop.  They could not stop.  There had been a vote, hadn’t there?  A vote, one that told them they had to march, to leave behind what could not be carried, to obey the captain as Edward always had but <em>no</em>, no, he thought wildly, his mind screeching to a halt, <em>no</em>, <em>we cannot continue, we have to go back, we cannot leave—</em></p><p>There was a body on the horizon.  Edward could see it as he was shoved forward again, the boat an impossibly heavy weight, the straps digging into his skin and making him pay for each and every step.</p><p>“Faster, Edward,” Le Vesconte said, grunted, even as Irving wheezed beside him, the front of his slops soaked through with something too dark to be sweat.  The body drew nearer, and Edward planted his feet again, but Le Vesconte turned to look at him, eyes full of pain before he grabbed Edward by the shoulder and gave him a mighty shove.</p><p>“Stop,” Edward tried to order the men who marched with him, but they kept going, slower and slower and <em>slower </em>and then <em>faster</em> all at once<em>.  </em>“Stop!” he ordered again, more force behind the words as the body became more distinct, as the boat grew heavier, as the men slogged further and further on.  Panic was a dead, icy weight in his chest, but when he tried to stop, to look back, he felt one of the men grab his arms and haul him forward.</p><p>“Keep going,” Solomon Tozer countered grimly, the red of his uniform stark against the colourless landscape, and no, <em>no</em>, that wasn’t—</p><p>“Sorry, Edward,” George Hodgson murmured, eyes lowered in shame, dwarfed by the chains that bound him and Tozer to the longboat.</p><p>“Repent therefore, and return again to God, that your sins may be blotted out,” Irving said, clapping Edward on the shoulder as he passed, blood bubbling from between his lips.  He looked at the body and smiled with red teeth and black gums.  “The time of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”</p><p><em>“</em>Edward,” someone else whispered, but Edward was stuck, his feet still unmoving.  <em>Lead</em>, he thought wildly<em>, no</em>, he begged soundlessly, but the body drew nearer and nearer until bleached whites turned into striped greys, the pale landscape broken by a shock of dark hair that drove every last scrap of air from Edward’s body.</p><p>He tried to turn away, but Le Vesconte’s hands gripped tight his head this time, forcing his eyes forward.</p><p>“The men preferred the captain’s orders, Edward,” he said, haggard and weary before moving on, walking around Jopson’s corpse like it was nothing, like <em>he</em> was nothing.</p><p>“No,” Edward said.  <em>Not him, anyone but him</em>, but the sickening guilt that accompanied that thought sent him to his knees until he was crawling across the landscape, dragging himself after the still-walking men and towards that unmoving form, the scrape of the boat against the rocks the only sound.  <em>Why are they not helping?</em> Edward thought desperately as the men continued on, seemingly unencumbered by the boat.   <em>Help us, help him, God, why did you leave this to me—</em></p><p>The boat stalled and Edward, with a cry, threw the straps off and dragged himself those few precious feet.  His face felt heavy, paper-thin skin pulled down and down and <em>down</em> and still he dragged himself until he was curled around Jopson, moulding his chest to Jopson’s back, <em>you’re breathing, you’re not breathing, God in heaven why did You not save him</em>—</p><p>“Edward.”</p><p>He buried his face in Jopson’s too-long hair, inhaled the scent of death and sickness.  Jopson was cold, so <em>cold</em>, and when Edward finally forced his eyes open and turned to look back at last it was to the sight of the abandoned boat piled high with corpses, dozens of dead eyes staring at him with no judgement, no pain, no accusation, just a horrible <em>emptiness </em>that left him gasping for air against the body of the man he had failed above all others.</p><p>“Edward,” Crozier said, appearing atop pile of corpses and climbing down.  His expression was pitying, disappointed, his face bloodied and bruised almost beyond recognition.  On his feet were Fitzjames’ boots, on his breast Franklin’s rank, on his body the girl’s thick fur coat.  “Tell them we’re dead—dead and gone.”</p><p>He woke to the sensation of Thomas’ body snug against his own, his arm draped securely around the other man’s waist, the impossible warmth of him a searing line of pain against his skin.</p><p>Edward curled closer.  Inhaled the scent of the Castile soap that Thomas used on his hair.</p><p><em>We’re alive,</em> he thought.  <em>We’re alive.</em></p><p><em>I’m not so sure we are,</em> Thomas’ voice whispered.</p><p>Edward was not so sure, either.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“The men on Beechey,” Captain William Penney had asked him tentatively before they’d left King William Island, the two brigs under his command floating beyond <em>Resolute’s</em> sturdy decks, “who were they?”</p><p>Edward had thought back to those graves, dug deliberately into the frozen ground and lovingly, mournfully filled and marked; had thought about the care shown those young men, whom they had all thought to have the devil’s own luck at the time.  He’d then thought of another man, buried alone in a wild and savage land with nothing to mark his resting place; of weathered bones and lonely stones, and the ghost of a man who had only ever wanted to be seen consigned to an anonymous oblivion.</p><p>He never asked what it was that William Penney had seen in his face; had never asked what had made Alexander Stewart take the smallest of steps back as Edward’d said, simply:</p><p>“The lucky ones.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Thomas Jopson was the unyielding, immovable object to the unstoppable forces of the men around him.  It was a trait that Edward had admired in the past, and one that had served their expedition well, but that did not mean it did not amuse him now as he watched Thomas standing stiffly in the middle of the stables, locked in a battle of wills with Gunpowder, the black thoroughbred Edward had raised from a foal some fifteen years ago.</p><p>There was no use promising that Gunpowder wouldn’t bite.  He was a temperamental beast, and Edward’s youngest brother William had only reaffirmed that nothing had changed in that regard when he’d stopped by the other day to fill Edward in on the care that had been given to them in his absence.</p><p>“It is astounding, Edward, how unsurprised I am that you keep horses.”  The deliberate lightness of Thomas’ voice was a tonal shift from the day before, but Edward didn’t comment on it—that had been his hope in bringing Tom out here, though he wasn’t fool enough to believe that some of it wasn’t feigned.</p><p>Smalls steps.  God only knew they all needed them.</p><p>Besides, there was something… he didn’t know what to call it, not really, but whatever it was made the tightness in Edward’s chest ease as he watched man and beast size each other up.  It brought a smile to his face, one he did not bother hiding as he dragged the old brush down Capilet’s flank.  A retired draught horse, Capilet’s reaction to Thomas had been one of ambivalence, but that hardly came as a surprise.  Despite his size, Cap was a gentle beast, the air of perpetual exhaustion hanging off of him a contrast to Gunpowder’s regal bearing and discerning, volatile nature—a nature Thomas seemed intent on engaging head-on.</p><p>Edward huffed.  “He’s a horse, Tom,” he said when a few more moments had passed.</p><p>“Of course,” came the reply.  Edward hid another smile, instead taking a moment to enjoy the sight of Thomas Jopson standing in the middle of the small stable.  He’d retained a simple vest and paired it with a shirt of dark purple, his face clean-shaven and his hair trimmed and neat, that stubborn lock brushed back for the moment.  With his sleeves rolled up Edward could see Thomas’ too-small wrists; knew that if he reached out he would be able to wrap his fingers around them with ease.</p><p>Small steps, he reminded himself again, thinking of the way Thomas had looked at him that morning, face unreadable as they’d gotten dressed, as unused to the sight of Edward without a greatcoat or a uniform or a pair of water-logged slops as Edward was to seeing Thomas without the veneer of first the captain’s trusted steward and then as the captain’s trusted lieutenant.</p><p>“Here,” Edward said abruptly, holding a hand out to Thomas.  He tried not to visibly react when Thomas turned and placed a hand in his without hesitation, though Thomas paused for the briefest of moments when Edward placed the brush in his hand and lead him closer to Cap, whose only reaction was a soft exhale when Thomas drew close.  Further down, Gunpowder let out a loud whinny and pawed at the air with his front leg, only subsiding when Edward pitched his voice to deliver a sharp <em>hey</em>, allowing Edward to return his attention to Tom, who had shuddered minutely against him, pupils dilated.</p><p>“Edward—”</p><p>“Tom,” Edward countered, shifting so that he was standing behind Thomas, one hand falling lightly on Thomas’ shoulder, the other reaching out to rest just over Thomas’ own, guiding the brush to Cap’s flank.  “Trust me,” he murmured, mouth just over Thomas’ ear.  He was close enough to feel the full-body shiver, and was caveman enough to admit he enjoyed the sensation; enjoyed knowing he could coax a reaction out of Thomas still, even here.</p><p>He did not put a name to the thing they had, to the emotions that stirred in his chest when the other man was near, but there was relief in knowing that they were real; that they were not jut a figment of that place, as dead and gone as he felt the rest of him was.</p><p>Once, Thomas had helped to guide his own hands; now, he allowed Edward to do the same, until the sound of the brush moving against Cap’s flank filled the air and a strange peace settled over Edward’s shoulders—different than the sort of peace the horses had brought him before the ice, but no less welcome.</p><p>“You have a horse voice, you know,” Thomas said after a few minutes of that, and Edward blinked, stunned, his mouth falling open to voice an instinctive denial before he caught the small smile curving Tom’s mouth.</p><p>“A horse voice?” he said instead, and something in his tone must have been amusing, for his Tom ducked his head and gave it a small shake.</p><p>“Oh, yes,” Thomas said, pitching his voice low and then, in a sharp rendition of Edward’s earlier command to Gunpowder, repeated his earlier command, the strangeness of hearing Thomas Jopson uttering a word as mundane and pedestrian as <em>hey</em> rendering Edward dumb for a few precious moments before the rush of the command caught up with him, flushing his cheeks an embarrassing red until he was sure he must have resembled a gangly-legged midshipman being confronted with his first doxy.</p><p>“Ah,” was all he said in the end, the hand on Thomas’ shoulder shifting to brush against the nape of his neck as he cleared his throat.</p><p>“Mmm, yes,” Thomas murmured.  “Had you used <em>that</em> voice back on <em>Terror</em>…” He trailed off.  Edward blinked again, fought to clear his head, traitorous eyes darting this way and that, remembering Jopson as he had been that first time, flushed pretty and with a coy smile pulling at his mouth as Edward had pressed him against the wood in <em>Terror</em>’s supply closet.</p><p>He cleared his throat and pressed closer to Tom’s back, keeping his mouth by the other man’s ear.  “I could always use it now,” he said, arms straying lower, playing with the fabric that covered Thomas’ stomach.  He was rewarded with another sharp inhale and with the way Tom placed the brush aside and lifted his arms, reaching them back to settle around Edward’s neck.</p><p>“It would be an absolute travesty if you did not, <em>sir</em>.”</p><p>Edward’s response was to nip briefly at Thomas’ neck, arms tightening briefly, hands dipping lower, slipping into a loosened waistband to grasp at the prize that lay inside.</p><p>“To me, then, Lieutenant Jopson,” Edward said, sharpening his voice in his best approximation of a command he had never consciously thought of, but that made Thomas shudder deliciously in his arms.</p><p>“You need only say the word, Edward.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Tom gasped so prettily, arched so wonderfully, and Edward, but a man, thought: <em>how could something so beautiful have survived that hellish place?  </em>Still held within the warm confines of Thomas’ thighs, his hand still wrapped around the other man’s length, he could only pant breathlessly against the back of Thomas’ neck as he heart beat incessantly against his ribs, until he thought it might escape and lodge itself next to Thomas’ own, never to be parted.</p><p>“Tom, Tom,” he mumbled, pressing the softest of kisses wherever he could reach, until Tom reached one hand back to slide into Edward’s hair, dislodging golden fleks that were a mirror to the ones littering their heaving bodies.</p><p>The image of Thomas Jopson with hay in his mussed hair would be one Edward Little treasured until the end of his days, the sensation of those cherry-red lips parted in a soundless gasp as they rolled like two schoolyard sweethearts in the barn one he would hold close to his chest, embedded soundly in the heart he now suspected beat solely for the man who lay curled against his front, breathing heavily against him.</p><p><em>Alive, alive, alive</em>, Edward thought, letting his head fall back into the hay as he closed his eyes, feeling the ice in his chest crack just a fraction further.  The colour still hurt, was still too bright, but against the dark of Thomas’ hair Edward found it slightly more bearable, slightly more beautiful.</p><p>
  <em>God, Ned, listen to you.</em>
</p><p>He kept his eyes closed.  Kept his focus on the way Thomas’ breathing was slowly returning to normal, on the way their bodies slotted together, on the welcome stickiness against his skin.</p><p>He tried not to feel guilt for their small scrap of happiness.  Tried not to dwell on on the fact that he was here, alive and breathing and warm and <em>not alone</em> while others lay cold and dead and forsaken in that place of betrayal and despair.</p><p>The threat of the court martial loomed still on the horizon, and he knew this peace was a fragile, limited thing, one that would run out shortly and leave them facing the world head-on, but until then he would be selfish, and pray to a God he no longer believed in to part the rising sea of guilt that threatened to burst forth from his lungs and allow him his path of pitiful salvation.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“They’re moving to sentence some of the men <em>in absentia</em>,” Edward observed weeks into their stay.  Thomas’ movements never faltered as he prepared that afternoon’s tea, their tongues slowly adjusting to the potency of it, but Edward did not miss the new level of fluidity that accompanied Thomas' actions, nor did he miss the faux-casualness of the man’s subsequent inquiry.</p><p>“Hickey and the other mutineers,” Edward answered, placing McClure’s letter back on the kitchen table.</p><p>Thomas placed the tea tray in front of him.  Edward thought of those same hands pulling at the straps on the longboat, guiding the barrel of a musket, directing the position of a noose.</p><p>“Whatever they decide,” Thomas said evenly, so cold that Edward wondered if the tea cup that he had lifted might crack with the chill of it, “it will not be enough.”</p><p>Edward thought of the good souls lost to the machinations of a man who thought he could parley with forces beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, thought of the desperation of that mad trek to find the captain before it was too late, and of the fact that the men he had forcefully dragged with him had almost guaranteed that it was.</p><p>He gritted his teeth to the image of Le Vesconte’s sorry face, the way the others gathered had not been able to meet his eyes as Edward had looked at them in disbelief.  Le Vesconte should have been the one suggesting they rescue the captain, should have been the one shouldering the command Edward had found himself saddled with for those long months, <em>years</em>, but he wasn’t, he <em>didn’t</em>, and Edward had felt a rage so incandescent that he had been struck dumb for a few precious moments as he looked at the man who had been content to forget his rank, his duties, his <em>responsibilities</em> until the midnight hour, and who, when he had finally remembered it, had used that rank to suggest a plan—<em>Edward’s own</em> plan, abandoned and best <em>forgotten</em>—that would surely doom them all.</p><p>After <em>Carnivale</em>, Edward had desired a captaincy less than ever before, but he’d fought for his command tooth and nail against the suggestion Le Vesconte had voiced on behalf of the other men, the other collaborators who, in that moment, had been no better than the mutineers in Edward’s eyes.</p><p>“No,” Edward admitted as he thought of their dead expressions, the cold spreading through his chest, down his arms, making the tips of his fingers go numb as he sipped, the tea a burn that he no longer felt he could stomach.  “It won’t be.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There was a storm that dwelled in Thomas Jopson’s pale eyes, always lingering just beneath the surface: a dark thing, a cold thing, one that made Edward think of Lieutenant Jopson and a mad race through the chaos of the fog, of hands steady and sure against the trigger of a musket and command readily accepted and deployed.</p><p><em>If a leader existed beyond the captain,</em> Edward remembered thinking, <em>then surely it is this man.</em>  Jopson had worn command better than Edward ever had, surely; had shown a natural aptitude and bearing that the Edward Little who had began the voyage could have only dreamed of, and yet—</p><p>And yet command had hardened him in ways that Edward had not noticed until the edges had begun to thaw, until he saw the briefest spark of light in Thomas’ eyes as they ate a quiet lunch by the pond and was left to wonder when the last time he’d seen it had been.  In that land of endless <em>nothing</em> there had been no more coy smiles, no more dimpled laughs—only a cold, determined stare, and orders issued in a voice that no longer seemed as soft, that no longer had the luxury of caring.  Sitting in the grass by the pond, his head pillowed against Thomas’ thigh and watching Thomas as he was now, as fractured and as shaken as Edward himself, Edward was forced to come face-to-face with the fact that the darkness of that place had not even left Thomas untouched, though he was among the best of them.</p><p><em>And what does that mean for you, Lieutenant Little?</em> he asked himself, forgoing the rank of reality for the rank of familiarity.  <em>Does it even mean anything at all?</em></p><p>He looked up at Thomas again, at the way he sat.  He should have looked relaxed.  To anyone who did not know Thomas, perhaps he did, but Edward could read the lines of pain in the tenseness of Thomas’ shoulders, in the firmness of his mouth, in the way his eyes gazed over the pond—not lost, nor joyless, but guarded, like the layers of ice had yet to melt completely, rendering those pale irises as distant and impenetrable as the frozen waters of the Passage.</p><p>A man centuries dead had once written that there was no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery, but sitting there, his head resting absently against Thomas’ thigh, right over the scar, Edward wondered if the opposite were not more true: if, perhaps, the greater sorrow was to recall times of misery during times of happiness, of levity, such that they poisoned the very air and replaced all thoughts of serenity and recovering with guilt and melancholy.</p><p>Tom’s hand brushed over his own, resting lightly against Edward’s chest.  Wordlessly, Edward took it, enjoying the welcome weight of it against his body.</p><p>“I would not have left you,” he said to Thomas’ profile.  The Thomas Jopson of years ago might have responded with a quicksilver smile or a low murmur of acceptance; this Tom merely tightened his grip and nodded, the tick in his jaw smoothing out for the briefest of moments.</p><p>Edward meant what he said nonetheless, meant it so fiercely now that he knew he would take on the entirety of the Admiralty to prove it.  Once years ago he had made the most horrendous of blunders and paid for it in the form of his lover’s disbelief and distrust—his life, almost.  He would not allow the Admiralty to finish what the ice had started.</p><p>The summons would come eventually.  They were hiding here, Edward knew, and sooner or later they would run out of earth to traverse, would run out of sea to sail, and he could only hope that, whatever it was that awaited them over the edge, it would show them a mercy Edward was only half-convinced he deserved.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Letters were an unexpected constant of their lives here.  There were the letters from Edward’s family, of course, which came with a regularity that could only be explained by the fact that he had six siblings and a mother whose overbearing nature had been made worse by his presumed loss at sea, but there were also the tentative letters from the surviving men of <em>Terror</em> and <em>Erebus</em>, some more legible than others.</p><p><em>I’m sorry</em>, Le Vesconte’s had said, the words lacking the flourish of the man’s signature.  <em>Peace be to you, Edward, wherever this letter finds you, </em>had been the contents of John Hammond’s simple correspondence, him being the only marine to have survived both the Passage and the journey back to England.  Edward Genge, the paymaster’s steward aboard <em>Terror</em>, had even sent Tom a small package of dried herbs and seeds, alongside a note that had been cosigned by a Maria Genge, who claimed a sisterly relation in the brief letter that had accompanied the goods.</p><p>There were never any letters from Thomas’ family—not from the brother Edward knew the man had, nor from the mother whose story had been calmly relayed to him on <em>Resolute</em>, when Thomas had refused point-blank to take any of the laudanum <em>Resolute’s</em> surgeon had offered.</p><p>Crozier’s letters found them more often than anyone else’s.  He’d once written that Blanky would have taken the piss out of him for the sheer amount of paper he was squirrelling away from Ross’ study, but the communication brought a smile to Thomas’ face, brought a spark of light back to his eyes, and so Edward had secretly torn a scrap of paper from one of his ledgers and added a simple, “<em>Thomas enjoys receiving your letters</em> - <em>Edward” </em>to the missive containing the reply Thomas had penned for them both.  Communication had only increased after that, and Edward wondered if Crozier had needed the confirmation that they wanted to hear from him as much as Thomas needed the assurance that their captain was well.</p><p>“<em>I suppose it’s nice to get away from the damn row of London</em>, <em>though the Rosses seem just as allergic to the concept of space as anyone there,</em>” Edward read aloud from the most recent note as Thomas bustled around the room, shirtsleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned as he moved furniture this way and that.  Edward had a little known talent for mimicry, and he delighted in deploying it now, though the even bigger delight was the way Thomas had stopped and laughed when he first heard Edward’s impersonation of Crozier’s Irish brogue a few weeks ago, when the first of the captain’s letters had come through.</p><p>“That means he’s about three seconds from threatening to throttle Ross,” Thomas commented idly, setting the mahogany bracket clock back on the mantel with a critical eye.</p><p>Edward, remembering Ross’ forlorn expression, felt a stab of pity for the man, and an even bigger one for his wife.  “Common occurrence?”</p><p>Thomas hummed.  Edward wondered if he was remembering that first foray into the Antarctic, and glanced over at the book resting innocently on the table next to him—the first volume Ross had published on his eponymously named <em>Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions</em>, which Crozier had sent over when Edward had haltingly requested a copy.</p><p>“Ross is an eternal optimist and idealist, and he does enjoy a little bit of pomp, both when the circumstances call for it and when they don’t,” Thomas said at last.  “The captain has always been more rooted in pragmatism.  Deeds performed without showmanship.  Actions that speak louder than words.”  He paused.  Then, quietly: “It is part of what drew him to Fitzjames in the end, I suspect.”</p><p>Edward lowered the letter.  He had never heard Thomas speak of <em>Erebus’</em> captain in any capacity; only knew from inference and the way grief clouded Thomas’ eyes whenever he was brought up that Thomas mourned him on a personal level at all.  Likewise, he had never heard Thomas verbally acknowledge their captain’s relationship, such as it was, with the man who had gone from wretched foe to trusted friend, brother, <em>more</em>.</p><p>They knew about it.  Of course they did.  Standing like silent pillars at the gravesite as Fitzjames’ body was lovingly sewn into canvas, Crozier’s grief had been all too plain.  There had been no words, for all that had needed to be said had been spoken, and Edward—</p><p>He remembered digging into the frozen ground, using the last reserves of a strength that he was no longer sure he had.  Remembered the burn in his arms, in his lungs, and how he had been joined in his task by a silent and grim Jopson, whose cracked lips had been pulled into a tight, thin line, and who had worked silently beside Edward until <em>Erebus’ </em>captain was as hidden as they could make him—a man who had only wanted to be seen, seen no more.</p><p>Thomas’ grief had been a subtle thing, then—grief for Fitzjames, but also grief for Crozier himself, that he had hidden behind the veneer of duty.  Now, knowing better, Edward could see it written into the smoothness of Thomas’ movements, in the tick of his jaw, in the strange light of his pale eyes. </p><p>“I’ll write to the the captain, if you’re amenable,” Edward said simply.  “Perhaps he’d like a change of scenery.”</p><p>Thomas looked at him.  Then he walked over and bent down to press a soft kiss to the crown of Edward’s head.</p><p>“I’d like that.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There was a sort of melancholy in the set of Thomas’ shoulders as the two of them bid the captain goodbye after his visit came to an end, but Edward, ever distracted by the way Thomas’ eyes glimmered in the gloom, in the light, wherever it was he could catch a glimpse of them, did not fail to notice that they seemed lighter, the storm clouds and the ice of the arctic still present but <em>softer</em>, somehow.  It was not the coquettish sparkle from before they had abandoned the ships to their fate, but it was welcome all the same, and when Edward pressed Thomas against the side of the house the breathy laugh that escaped the other man seemed all the more welcome, less bleak, and Edward—</p><p>He fell in love, just a little bit more, and he whispered sonnets and operas he’d thought he’d never have the chance to remember into the crook of Jopson’s neck until the sun was but a distant memory in the cloudless sky.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Thomas Jopson shone in the countryside.  Edward was no artist, had not nurtured an ability to bring the world to life with charcoal-smudged hands, but it hardly mattered.  It was enough to simply watch the other man, to see the healthy pink that had slowly begun to fill his cheeks as Edward’s hands occupied themselves with Cap’s insistent nudging.</p><p>“Enough,” he told the horse, but the words were spoken almost absently, the entirety of his attention on the way Jopson weaved between the still-growing shrubberies, fingers dragging lightly against the peonies Edward’s sister Janey had ordered planted in his absence.</p><p>The colours still hurt, like the gold, like anything that wasn’t a shade of blue or grey, white or black.  Red.  He liked to think he would get used to them in time.  Seeing Thomas in colour made it all easier to bear, the man resplendent in the new clothing they had acquired, but then again Thomas had always been the one contrast to that barren place.</p><p>His family’s reaction to Thomas had been mixed, but Simon Little, himself a navy man who had once served in the Glorious First of June some fifty years before, had accepted the presence of a “close shipmate” with nothing more than a nod, his hands shaking with age as he’d rested one on Tom’s shoulder.  With Edward’s father’s support had come the wary acceptance of his older brothers and the more exuberant support of his sisters, especially Janey, who had seemed especially charmed.</p><p>Edward did not begrudge her that.  Remembering the way Thomas’ regard had made him flush hot under his collar in those early days trapped in the ice, he thought, rather mournfully, that he had been especially charmed, too.</p><p><em>Are you still charmed, Captain Little?</em> the Thomas of his imagination asked, voice whisper-soft.  Edward’s only response was a low hum, poetry the likes of which he had not had the luxury of indulging in years past gliding through his mind as if through a sieve.  <em>My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep,</em> he thought, lowering his hand from Cap’s muzzle and extending it towards Thomas, who took it immediately once he had drawn near and smiled faintly when Edward raised it to his mouth, pressing a brief kiss to his fingers.  <em>The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.</em></p><p>The summons he had been given that morning burned a hole in the back pocket of his breeches.  He ignored them.  <em>Unwise</em>. </p><p>He drank in what remained of the moment nonetheless.  His Tom would feel no surprise at the stiflingly formal wording of the letter, nor would he be surprised by its purpose.</p><p>Cap’s head drifted slowly to butt against Edward’s hip again.</p><p><em>“You are good with the animals,” </em>Thomas had said after that first, immensely enjoyable visit to the stables, which had been well-maintained in his absence by Edward’s brother David and his boisterous nephews.  Edward’s response had been a small half-shrug, his face still flushed and his own hair still decorated with hay, but there had been fondness in Thomas’ voice, and that same fondness could be seen glimmering in his eyes now.  Over a month in this place had been enough to develop a routine, something neither of them, after years of service, could shake, and it was common for Edward to come in, sleeves rolled up, dusty and muddy and smelling of horse and the outdoors to find Thomas waiting with the afternoon tea at the ready, his own sleeves rolled up, and <em>oh</em>, how pathetically Edward had found himself panting at the exposed skin, drinking it in like a man denied water.  A muggy fog had clouded his mind the first time he’d had Thomas in the comfort of their sitting room, the both of them shivering, greedy, <em>desperate</em>.</p><p>He supposed they had been.  Still were.  Desperate to forget, to find some semblance of a life, some semblance of purpose.  The Discovery Service still had need of them, the people of London hailing them as heroes for a technicality.</p><p>But first—</p><p>Thomas’ spine went rigid when Edward handed him the letter, his pale eyes gone sharp as obsidian.  He did not open it, did not even give it more than a cursory glance, and Edward watched with dread unfurling in his chest as the man he loved reached up to slowly push that wayward strand of hair out of his face.  Their little English garden suddenly felt smaller, colder, a facade stripped away to its bone.</p><p>“The captain?” Thomas said, and Edward almost winced at the flat professionalism of his voice.  He thought about hunting parties in the Arctic and the weight of those blue eyes on him, incredulous and disappointed and as angry as Edward had ever thought he’d seen them.</p><p>“I left his letter on your desk.”</p><p>Thomas nodded—short, perfunctory.  He reached up to brush aside his hair again, and Edward was left to stare helplessly at him as he had back on <em>Terror</em>, watching as Thomas ran himself ragged to ensure the survival of the man who held their loyalty—who still held it.  Suddenly, Edward was struck with another memory: his Tom, who loved so fiercely, whose loyalty was etched into his very soul, standing atop the makeshift gallows, his face a blank mask as he’d coldly placed the noose around Cornelius Hickey’s neck without pause or hesitation.</p><p>Crozier and the officers may have been judge and jury, but Thomas Jopson would have been executioner, and Edward knew he would have done it without question, without hesitation, to preserve them all, no matter the cost to himself.</p><p>“The court martial is merely a formality,” Edward said.  He almost added more, almost added <em>why</em>, but he held his tongue the way he hadn’t with Crozier all those years ago.</p><p>Thomas’ rank might have been new, but even being younger than Edward he had more experience than most men could dream of, had been trusted thoroughly by their captain for reasons beyond his efficiency as a steward, and Edward would not insult his intelligence by suggesting Thomas did not know <em>why</em> the formality was necessary.</p><p>“Tom,” he murmured.  “The summons are for Crozier and myself, but I—” he broke off.  Clenched his jaw.  Took a deep breath and, fighting the urge to fidget, continued: “I would not be adverse to your presence there alongside us.”</p><p>The court martial would be aimed at himself and Crozier, he knew.  Had Fitzjames lived, it would have been him in Edward’s places, and had Le Vesconte—</p><p>Edward stiffened, shoulders hunching forward before he forced them back.</p><p>“Will Dundy be present?” Thomas asked.  Edward did not think for even one moment that Thomas had voiced the question coincidentally.  He had watched as Edward considered feeding Le Vesconte’s letter to the flame; had seen, albeit in a semi-delirious mindset, the state Le Vesconte had been in when the men had returned with Crozier supported between the two of them.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Thomas cocked his head to the side.</p><p>“The captain needs us.  I need you,” Edward admitted then, his eyes steady on Thomas, who glanced away briefly before meeting his gaze again.  Something flickered in his eyes, and then Thomas’ blank mask faltered, shuttered, transformed into something else, a grim thing that ignited the same sort of emotion that had prompted Edward to shatter Le Vesconte’s nose that day in the camps rather than acquiesce to the men’s desire to leave Crozier and the sick behind to forge their own path forward.  It was more than protection, more than duty: it was the depths of Thomas’ loyalty, of his own, the thing that had prompted Thomas to place that noose around Hickey’s neck without remorse, the thing that had allowed Edward to rally the officers under his command at last and rain destruction on the devils who had taken their captain from them.</p><p>Edward’s took Jopson’s hand in his own again.  Squeezed once, a recognition: like and like, not two sides of the same coin but two different coins of the same currency.</p><p>Thomas lifted his chin.  Inclined his head.  “Captain Little,” he murmured, before turning swiftly and walking back to the house, every step measured, fluid.</p><p>Edward rested a hand on Capilet’s nose, indulging in its softness before closing his eyes against autumn winds that no longer felt as warm as they had only moments prior.</p><p><em>A formality</em>, he’d said.</p><p><em>Yes, </em>he thought grimly, <em>and it will be nothing more.</em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>Captain Little</em>, the letter informing him of his court martial said, officially confirming the rank Edward had received through the deaths of more deserving men.  <em>Standard procedure</em>, Crozier’s missive had added crisply, followed by a serious of far less crisp black lines and a couple smudges that left no doubts as to the opinions of the man who had made them.</p><p>He placed the pen and Crozier’s addendum on his dresser all too gladly.  The golden nib of his fountain pen winked at him, as taunting as his new rank.</p><p>“Captain Little,” Edward muttered as he sat on the edge of their bed in nothing more than his night shirt—one of the new ones, the fabric so soft Edward ached at the discomfort of it, so used to the sensation of scratchy, damp wool was he.  By the coromandel screen Thomas, in the process of stripping down, performed the nightly rituals, the ends of his hair dripping water into one of the basins.</p><p>Edward juxtaposed the scene with a sight he had witnessed many times: Jopson gliding around the great cabin, tray in hand, those deft hands working utensils and uniforms and whatever else the captain ordered.</p><p>If Edward returned to the sea, <em>when</em> he returned to the sea, he would be lucky to secure a steward half as competent as Jopson.  <em>A captain’s steward</em>, he thought with a grimace, <em>not one to share amongst the other officers.</em></p><p>The thought was not an appealing one, though it should have been.  <em>Captain</em>, the note taunted.<em>  How’s it feel then, Captain Little?</em> Crozier had asked, alongside forwarded well-wishes from the Rosses.  Thomas had smiled faintly at that.  It hadn’t reached his eyes.</p><p>There had been no mention of Thomas’ rank, of Thomas’ promotion.  Lesser men with fewer limbs and more scars had been raised to higher positions, Edward knew, but the notion of being promoted to captain while Thomas’ exploits went largely unrewarded was a bitter pill, one he was unwilling to swallow and was more liable to spit back up into the Admiralty’s face if given the opportunity.</p><p> “Commander was enough,” Edward said into the silence.  Thomas gave a low hum—he was listening.  “They promoted me a year into the expedition,” Edward elaborated, “though we had barely made any headway.  They should have left it at that.”  He said nothing of how little he thought he deserved the captaincy, how little he <em>wanted</em> it, though the man who had boasted to Captain John Toup Nicolas nearly seven years ago would surely have revelled at least somewhat in the promotion.  There was no pride in this, though, Edward found: just a bleakness that had him hunching forward in his seat the way he had in <em>Terror’s</em> great’s cabin long ago, ragged from ice and snow and death.</p><p>Thomas paused, half-undressed, sending Edward a slow look over one shoulder.  “It is not so hard a thing to believe.”  His voice was neutral, his eyes curious.  The storm that had raged in them earlier had calmed, hardened, leaving only the pale blue of the Arctic and the calm of those early days when the ice had been a novelty instead of a prison—a thing of beauty, to be admired from afar, the way Edward once had, his own eyes tracing Thomas over the heads of the other officers, praying to God that his indiscretions would go unnoticed.</p><p>He should have known better.  Thomas Jopson never missed anything.  Not then, not now, and so when Edward waved his hand with a flat, <em>“</em>isn’t it?” Thomas’ response was near-instant, his expression shadowing and a queer, almost sad something pulling at the corners of his mouth, highlighting the dimples that had once haunted Edward’s every waking moment.</p><p>They still did.  <em>Get a hold of yourself, Lieutenant.</em></p><p>His hands fidgeted as he resisted the urge to bury his face in them. <em>No. Captain, now.</em></p><p>“Oh, love,” Thomas said, crossing the room.  He rested one hand on Edward’s leg, bracketing Edward’s thighs with his own as he slipped gracefully into Edward’s lap.  His nightshirt, oversized—one of Edward’s own, evidently—slipped precariously off of one shoulder.  “You think so low of yourself.”</p><p><em>There is little good to think</em>, Edward thought but didn’t say.  He set his jaw instead, turning his head away.  He thought of Crozier’s evident disappointment during those early days, the shame his own inexperience had brought both himself and the man he had served under.  <em>Even the captain’s steward has more experience than you,</em> Edward had thought bitterly then, seeing the trust Crozier had placed in Jopson.  He had not resented Thomas for it, not then, not now, but he had felt his own shortcomings all the more keenly knowing of it.</p><p>The yellow light of the candle winked at him, flickering in the gloom.  He thought of the weight of the pistol in his hands, how he had immediately put it aside.  The gold decorations had taunted him then, too, reminder of a command he had not asked for, nor wanted, but had received nonetheless—once again at the expense of someone else.  He thought, too, of the ache in his head during the confusion of Hickey’s mutiny; of the weight of his own crushing fear, the burning cold, of looking Thomas Jopson and Francis Crozier and Henry Le Vesconte dead in the eye and telling them, exhaustion burdening every word: <em>some, surely</em>.  <em>But not for all of us.  </em>His own hypocrisy was a sickening thing, and he faced it head-on now, his sins reflecting back on him through the memory Le Vesconte’s weary eyes, his quiet response to Edward’s declaration of war.</p><p>
  <em>There’s been a vote, Edward.</em>
</p><p>“I am an abysmal disappointment, Lieutenant Jopson,” Edward said, the words flat and detached as though they came from far away: an impersonal statement of pure, unemotional fact.  “Worse: a hypocrite and a coward.  Hardly the makings of a good man, let alone a good captain.”  A crinkling sound filled the air, and Edward realized belatedly that he was the cause when he saw the Admiralty’s letter reduced to an uneven mess.  He let go, and the paper fell to the floor, and he very carefully did not look at Thomas as he said: “It is not I who should be standing next to the captain before the Admiralty.”</p><p><em>I should have died in the Arctic</em>, went unspoken, but the way Thomas stiffened, his hands suddenly gripping tight Edward’s shoulders through the loose fabric of his shirt, told him that the hidden words had been heard all the same.</p><p>“You would leave me, Edward?”</p><p>Edward jerked his head up, prompted by the desire to refute the words and the uncensored and ragged anger in Thomas’ voice—a sort he had never heard before.  He opened his mouth, hands fluttering up, but Thomas stopped him, silenced him with a look that left Edward feeling stripped bare.</p><p>He waited.  When Thomas spoke again, his voice was soft, but the unnatural stillness of his body told Edward that it was taking everything for him to keep it that way.  “In a place that turned so many men into things more monstrous than any creature God could put on this earth, you did not let it make you so.”  Thomas dragged in a breath, and in the silence Edward felt one of Tom’s hands running the length of his arm.  Edward wondered if Thomas knew he was even doing it.  “You did all that was asked of you and more. You stood against the men when it mattered.  You rescued the captain.  You carried me God-knows how long across a barren landscape.  You learned, when and where you could.  Struggling to make the right choice does not diminish it once its made.”  Thomas’ fingers flexed, his face intense.  “You are a good man, Edward Little, one who cares deeply, and whose loyalty is absolute.”  A hand came to settle against Edward’s cheek, Thomas’ fingers curling delicately against the whiskered skin.  “Are these not all things that good captains are?”</p><p>Edward’s hands gripped tight Thomas’ thighs, his breathing ragged.  <em>Lieutenant, Commander, Captain,</em> his mind replayed, and if Edward had thought the burden of command difficult to bear before, it was nearly suffocating now with Thomas’ words, a beastly thing that dogged his every waking step and followed him into sleep as surely as the cold once had.  <em>Lieutenant, Commander, Captain. You will lead the men forward.</em></p><p>
  <em>You must be my proxy here, Edward.</em>
</p><p>“You did not leave me to die in the cold to chase glory and fame.  You did not leave our captain, either,” Thomas continued, hushed, resolute.  The candle glowed on the table, making the shadows dance across the man’s face.  <em>“</em>I could bear it alone, Captain—” whisper-soft, a caress to his cheek, cold hands against warm skin  “—but it would be a sorry existence without the one I loved, and my life would be poorer for your absence.  Do not think your life has no meaning, or that I am not grateful for it every <em>second</em> that passes here where I can cherish it.”</p><p>A strange pressure in his chest threatened to choke off Edward’s airway, and with a muffled <em>something</em> he pressed his head against Thomas’ chest, faintly aware of the way they shook together, undone, overwhelmed.  But with the pressure, with the unmistakable bubble of <em>affection</em> and <em>so much more than what the poets could ever dream to write of</em>, came the knowledge that if Thomas knew—if he <em>knew</em>—</p><p>The guilt joined the affection, threatened to eat him alive: guilt for actions taken and guilt for actions not, and finally guilt for the secret truths that had plagued him since before their rescue, since before they had set off after the captain; since before he had tucked Jopson secure and blessedly <em>alive</em> into the small cabin they had been allotted on <em>Resolute</em>.</p><p>Thomas’ hand was still resting against his face.  Edward treasured it quietly—wondered if Thomas would withdraw it once he knew what it was that rattled around Edward’s breast, that clogged up his throat, that made his vision tunnel into a bleak and sinister <em>black</em> whenever the thought of certain men came to mind.</p><p>“A good captain,” he rasped, the words spilling out at last, “would hate the men under his command less than I.”</p><p>Thomas’ fingers curled against the skin of his cheek and the look in his eyes was of ice cracking under the force of a thousand iron hulls.</p><p>“Edward,” he said, his voice breaking at last before he was pulling Edward forward, before Edward was burying his face in the crook of Thomas’ neck, crushing their bodies together in a tangle of guilt and something that felt horribly like a forgiveness undeserved.</p><p>Thomas was speaking to him, words Edward could not hear that he suspected Thomas did not fully expect him to, but the anguish was still there in his voice, and <em>God, </em>Edward hated himself for putting it there, hated himself for bringing forth that agonizing bit of emotion in a man who deserved so much better than he.  His embrace tightened, the stillness of his body giving way to a fine tremble, matched by the man who was salvation and saved and saviour all in one.</p><p>Thomas did not offer forgiveness for this.  He could not.  The rage towards Le Vesconte, towards the wretched scraps of their crew who had survived with him, it was not something Thomas had the power to erase, to pardon.</p><p>“I once knew a man who carried the weight of the world as you do,” Thomas said, the sound still pain-laced.  “He was so cold, Edward.”  Hands slipped into Edward’s hair for the briefest of moments, then fell.  He felt Thomas shiver and remembered the dead weight of him on his back on that long trek, the stillness of his body as he’d lain in that cabin, messy and unkept and the sole spot of colour in Edward’s increasingly narrow world, so bright Edward could have died for looking at him.</p><p><em>“Cold</em>,” Jopson had said through cracked lips, eyes gazing sightlessly at Edward, beyond him, focusing on the shadow of death that had hovered over Edward’s shoulder.  <em>“Edward?  Captain?”</em></p><p>The weight of Crozier’s pistol suddenly felt heavy in his hand again, though it gripped but flesh.  <em>Take this.  Take it.  </em><em>Don’t give it back to me until you see me on deck again in full uniform.</em></p><p>Thomas’ dark hair had blended into the gloom of the cabin, his profile illuminated by the candlelight—beautiful, but severe.  The four of them had just been handed the burden of Atlas, but while Fitzjames and MacDonald had been a mixture of shock and protest and Edward the very picture of reluctance, Thomas Jopson had only squared himself up and accepted the situation, determination in the set of his shoulders and the fierceness of his care shadowing those pale eyes.</p><p>It was not unlike how he looked now, Edward reflected, reaching up to brush aside that errant strand of hair.  Determined, lovely, with that selfsame care and loyalty.  Edward questioned how he had come to be worthy of it.  Had wondered, often, what it was that went through Thomas’ own mind when it came to the nature of what they’d lived through and what they were.  But he remembered, too, the chill of his eyes, how that warmth had slowly gone cold, tucked away under a stone-cold casing to protect the beating heart that lay quivering and fighting underneath, and realised that he did not have to wonder, not truly.</p><p>“Lieutenant,” Edward murmured.  “Jopson.  <em>Tom</em>.”  He drew the quilted blanket off the end of the bed, draped it over Thomas’ shoulders—tried not to bask too much in the small little cocoon of warmth that it provided to them both, a temporary shield against the chill of the outside world.  “If you are cold, Tom, you need only say the word.”</p><p>Thomas’ smile was shaky, his eyes misty when he drew back.</p><p>“You’re a good man, Edward Little,” he repeated, more firmly this time.  “I wish you could see it as I do.”</p><p>He reached up with both hands.  Cupped Thomas’ face as gently as he could.  Then, he let his eyes fall half-closed as Thomas pressed a brief kiss to his palm; decided that whatever it was that Tom thought, Edward trusted him.  That had been the truth of it these past five years, six, and it was not something Edward saw changing with any tide.  </p><p>
  <em>Lieutenant, Commander, Captain.</em>
</p><p>Then, Thomas’ voice again.  <em>Edward</em>.</p><p>He surged up, pressing a desperate kiss to Thomas’ neck, his jaw, his mouth, anywhere he could reach.</p><p>Somewhere in the vicinity of his chest, the ice began to shift once more.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>Lieutenant </em>had been a new title when Edward had boarded HMS <em>Vindictive</em> and sailed to the cloying heat of the East Indies, and his fellow officers had been incredulous when he had voiced his intentions to enlist in the Discovery Service.</p><p><em>“Hope you aren’t too fond of those fingers, Little,</em>” <em>Vindictive’s</em> captain had said with a derisive snort, leaning back in his chair as the gathered officers had shared a round of too-warm spirits.  <em>“The money’s good, but only if you live to spend it.”</em></p><p>Edward thought about that now as he lay on his back, eyes wide open in the gloom, staring at a decorated ceiling he could not see, his only distraction Thomas’ even, steady breathing.</p><p>He flexed his fingers.  All there, despite the odds.  His thoughts turned to <em>Terror’s</em> ice master, and of the bloodied mess that had been what remained of his leg.</p><p>Beside him, Thomas shivered.  Edward rolled over without thought, drawing Thomas against his chest, turning his face into sleep-mussed dark hair and inhaling the familiar scent.  He had done much the same on <em>Terror</em>, when boldness—or perhaps sheer exhaustion—had overrode common sense and decency.  After they had abandoned the ships, he had done so again.</p><p>He’d said nothing when that comforting scent had become riddled with the smell of illness, of death.  There had been no prayers, no pleas.  He had merely held Thomas closer, continued to bury his face in that lengthening hair, and tried to feel something other than that wretched numbness.</p><p>A hand lifted to cover his own where it had come to rest against Thomas’ stomach.  He felt Thomas’ head turn, tilting up, and then instead of hair against his mouth it was another set of lips, the hand covering his own gripping tight before relaxing and falling away.  When Thomas drifted off again, Edward joined him, slipping away on a current of ice and snow and the inexplicable warmth of the Malaysian breeze.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When Edward returned from picking Gunpowder’s hooves to find Thomas determinedly mending one of his white shirts he felt distinctly like the marble floor had tilted on its axis, leaving him feeling unmoored and like a despairing fool as he stood like a stranger in the entrance to his own sitting room.</p><p>“Trunks are in order,” he said ineptly, settling in his chair by the unlit fire and the silent Webster &amp; Horsfal piano. Thomas’ needle stabbed into the fabric with an aggression that made Edward wince.  He shifted, sure the concern in his eyes would have been clear if Thomas had looked, but the man’s focus was elsewhere, and Edward did not think for one moment that it was the tear of his shirt that occupied Thomas’ thoughts.</p><p>“Tom—” Edward began, but he quickly cut himself off when Thomas drove the needle into his own thumb with an annoyed hiss.  Wordlessly, Edward passed Thomas one of the handkerchiefs he kept on his person, a habit he had never been able to break, not even on the ice, and watched as drops of Thomas’ blood—red, an achingly familiar hue—stained the cream-coloured fabric.</p><p>Part of him wanted to reach forward, to do it himself, to take Tom’s hand in his own, but the tenseness of Thomas’ shoulders warded him off.  Instead he waited, something in his chest cracking in two as surely as the burden Thomas had taken upon his shoulders weighed him down.</p><p>Captains Crozier or Fitzjames might have lead with a joke, or some sort of remark meant to distract, whether good or bad.  Edward Little, who had once responded to Crozier’s sly inquiry as to the state of their <em>Medusa</em> with reports of a man’s death, who had lamented the using of their supplies to Fitzjames when <em>Erebus’</em> captain had smiled and rejoiced in the men’s gaiety, merely stood still and watched, his hands unmoving at his side, the way they always were when Thomas was near—the way they always had been around him, when even the mere mention of<em> Jopson</em> had been enough to still Edward entirely.  Edward had been insufferable in his inability to stay still once, eyes darting this way and that, hands fidgeting and touching as his shoulders lifted up and down and his head turned this way and that.  Irving had remarked on it once, with a brittle smile, and Edward had gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts, knowing they paled in comparison to the captain’s expectations even as his own expectations of Crozier had began to falter as he observed week after week of uninhibited alcoholism.  Yet whenever the captain’s steward had been nearby it had been as if his body had forgotten how to move, how to breathe, and he’d been left to simply watch Jopson surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, tracing the man’s every movement.</p><p><em>Envy,</em> Edward had thought at one point, a desperate avoidance tactic for what truly drove the stillness.  <em>Respect.  Admiration</em>.  Dangerous things.  <em>Lust</em>.</p><p>No.</p><p>More dangerous than that, in the end.</p><p>“Tom,” he said again, his voice gruff, not as soft as Thomas’, but he tried to tender it nonetheless, clearing his throat.  He held out a hand, and Thomas wordlessly passed him the shirt, which Edward set aside before he joined Thomas on the chesterfield, hands braced on his knees.  He caught Thomas’ gaze, held it firmly where he might have once looked away, until Thomas’ jaw clenched and set.  On the table, Edward could see the summons, smoothed out, evidence of his own earlier frustration.</p><p>It looked worse now, somehow, as though someone had crushed it again and then did their best to pretend they hadn’t.  He kept the observation to himself, but wasn’t fool enough to think Tom missed the way his eyes slid between him and the official order.</p><p>Back on <em>Terror</em>, Thomas had once told him, a faint smile creasing his face, that Edward’s eyes often revealed his thoughts; that, if one wanted to know his opinions on something, one must only look there and they would see clearly.</p><p>Edward, who had once weathered an exasperated tirade from his mother on how she only wished she could understand him, who had been called a stickler for rules and protocol and orders and been read for filth for what others perceived as standoffishness on occasion, had furrowed his brow in confusion at the words before shaking his head.</p><p><em>“You’re a cold fish, Lieutenant Little,”</em> Hodgson had once said, though he had cut the remark with a smile and a friendly slap on the back.  <em>“Lighten up, would you?”</em></p><p><em>“How warm it is here,”</em> Thomas had whispered that same night, the two of them hidden in the steward’s pantry, as Edward slung an arm around his waist and pulled him as close as he dared.</p><p>He was warm now, the fire lit against a chilly evening.  Could Thomas see his thoughts, he wondered, as he’d once claimed?  Could he have seen it then, the dangerous affection that had rooted itself so deeply within Edward's chest cavity that he’d been afraid the growing branches would give him away?</p><p>Years ago Edward had set out on a ship in Her Majesty’s Discovery Service, drunk on the notion and the glory of discovering the path through the Northwest Passage, and he had met a man with eyes as pale as the froth of the Arctic seas and a smile as enigmatic as Da Vinci’s most celebrated masterpiece.  The man had seemed unknowable to him then, unreachable, far above his station despite his lower rank.  Professional, Edward had thought of him.  Dutiful. Jopson had kept his emotions close to his breast, an unyielding focal point that others could weave themselves around; a lighthouse on the shore for the ships and the sailors lost at sea.</p><p>A smile for a captain.  A polite nod for the captain’s men.  An unnamable, untameable longing that had made its home in Edward’s throat, in the sudden stillness of his hands.  And finally, a glimpse of what it was that lay beneath the polite veneer of the captain’s steward: a man who loved quietly and fiercely, who would run himself ragged and loan out pieces of himself until nothing was left to keep those around him going. </p><p>Jopson had been readable, then, in his own way, and Edward had been determined to learn all that he could.  It made Thomas all the more legible to him now, and he could see the resentment shimmering in those blue eyes, the tension in his jaw, the tightness in his hands.  Thomas would speak of what pained him, because Edward would wait, and Thomas trusted him to do so.</p><p>It was a sobering thought, when Edward had, in the past, given him reason to suspect he would not remain.</p><p>Edward glanced at the thimble that rested deliberately on the carved table, pinning the summons in place, and did not ask why Tom had not been using it.</p><p>“It’s just that I find this whole thing to be an absolute <em>crock</em>, sir.”  Thomas’ voice was soft, always was, even with the undercurrent of steel that had reinforced his command first as the captain’s steward and then as Lieutenant Jopson.  It had been a lesson for Edward, hearing that softness and learning that with it could come anger and authority, too.  It was a surprise hearing it now, and he thought back to the storm in Thomas’ eyes, the strained nature of his smiles, and thought <em>ah</em>.</p><p>Thomas had weathered the idea of the court martial with naught but icy professionalism and the barest traces of anger until that one night, and now, it was as thought he could not help himself, the last of the veneer disintegrating in front of Edward’s very eyes as Thomas moved the needle in and out, <em>in and out</em>, the faintest of tremours in his normally steady hands.</p><p>Edward had been a fool to not see it before, how tenuously Thomas had been holding onto his control, and he felt shamed for the part of him that rejoiced, even a <em>little</em>, in the way Thomas’ protection had extended to include his own wellbeing.  This was ire stemming from fear and a sense of hopelessness when a loved one was forced into an untenable situation, and Edward—</p><p>He exhaled.  Watched, quietly, and waited.  The flames of the fire cast shadows across Thomas’ face, throwing his profile into sharp relief.</p><p><em>I do not deserve this man</em>, he thought again, but he had Thomas nonetheless; knew that now with a certainty that left his very bones rattled and his thoughts momentarily in disarray.  Deserving had very little to do with anything, he'd come to find.</p><p>“The Admiralty is ruled by the crack of a wooden spoon and nothing much else, mark that,” Thomas continued lowly at Edward’s quiet prompting, his eyes flashing.  “They would pass blame on good men in the absence of the hawks.  I know it’s a formality—God’s sake, Edward, of course I do, and the fact that it is only makes it worse.”</p><p>Thomas glanced away, eyes fixing on the darkness outside their open window.  The needle stopped, finally, and Edward let out a slow breath.</p><p>“This is not leadership,” Thomas said, “it is arrogance playing at authority while they claim the glory we paid for with the lives of over one-hundred men.”  Thomas did not throw the needle still in his hand, though the way he delicately placed it on the table next to the crinkled note and the unused thimble somehow managed to convey the desire.  “We chased the Passage for queen and country and found nothing but death and hatred and fear.”  A pause.  Then, firmly, without even a hint of a waver: “I should have shot him.  I almost did.”  He lifted his head, and Edward was abruptly reminded again of the gallows, of Thomas standing guard over the smug creature contained within, of Thomas wrapping the noose around Hickey’s neck himself, cold and efficient and loyal, but also <em>willing</em>.</p><p>“You could always try shooting Admiral Back,” he said before he could stop himself, wincing at his own words and slowly folding his hands in his lap.  For whatever reason, it brought a faint smile to Thomas’ face.  Edward soldiered on, adjusting his tactics.  He could see, now, what lurked in the eye of Thomas Jopson’s storm, or thought he could, and prayed he wasn’t wrong when he said, voice as low and soft as he could possibly pitch it: “We chased other things, too, in that place.  We found other things.  Things I would not trade for anything.”  He did not say, <em>we will be all right</em>.  It seemed insulting, somehow.  Instead, he merely reached his fingers lightly against Thomas’ wrist, the way they had aboard <em>Resolute</em>, ragged and half-dead, a perfect match to the grey of the London docks that had welcomed them not home, but <em>back</em>, at the very least.</p><p>Something flashed in Jopson’s eyes for a moment, his smile pulling tight at the edges before it softened out, and Edward fought the urge to look away, shamed, even now, by the intensity with which he needed this man; by how much Thomas Jopson’s life and happiness had come to mean to him.  By how much his own life, his happiness, his and the captain’s, apparently meant to Thomas.</p><p><em>Enough to maim himself over</em>, Edward thought, gently lifting Thomas’ hand and pressing a kiss to the wounded fingertips the way he had wanted to upon their initial injury, and he thought, if the Admiralty ever allowed him another ship, that he would fight tooth-and-nail to have Thomas accompany him in whatever capacity the other man wanted, in whatever way he desired.  <em>Lieutenant Jopson</em>, he imagined saying in front of the other officers, his pride in the other man a fierce thing.  <em>Lieutenant Jopson</em>, he imagined whispering in the dark confines of the cabin, when few would find it suspicious for two officers to meet and discuss the ship in the dark hours of the night.</p><p>A poor thing for a captain to play favourites, but then again, Edward had never claimed to be an exemplary commander.  Once, perhaps, he might have tried to be, but now—</p><p>In his sleep he saw that lone figure, half-dead and dark against an expanse of endless white.  In his waking moments he saw that same lone figure, alive and flushed with colour against the starched white sheet of the bed they had made together.  He reached out—<em>careful</em>—to curl his fingers against one reddened cheek, shuddering at the warmth he felt there, remembering a time when it had been impossibly cold.</p><p><em>Pathetic</em>, something whispered to him.  He leaned forward, pressing his mouth to Jopson’s, swallowing the muffled gasp that followed as he had in London.  Pressed another kiss, impossibly careful, impossibly reverent, to that freshly-shaven jaw, while another hand pushed that stubborn lock of hair—still just this side of professional, a problem for when the sun rose, a strange novelty—back behind a delicately curved ear.</p><p>“Come with me,” Edward said simply, and Jopson sighed, a hand coming to rest under Edward chin, bringing their mouths together in a chaste trade that was less a kiss than it was an exchange of breath, of air, of <em>life</em>. </p><p>Edward’s rage towards the Admiralty still burned hot-cold in his chest, and part of him would have loved nothing more than to march in their and thwart their playacting, but he placated that beast; contented himself with the knowledge that Thomas felt that same fire, that same drive.  His mind turned to the captain briefly as Thomas’ head came to rest against his shoulder, sorrow making its home alongside the impossible fondness in his breast as he thought of a secret grave hidden in the earth of a place not meant for the likes of them.  He remembered the red bleeding into the whites of Fitzjames’ eye.  When Crozier had given the order for his burial—deep, hidden, so that he would not be disturbed—Edward remembered the grey pallor of his face, and the delicate gold stitching on navy boots.</p><p>Thomas’ mouth was red, too, but Edward could feel his breath tickling his neck gently, a calming thing.  It felt like a dream, some days, except he had never truly dreamed in that place, not once <em>Erebus </em>and <em>Terror</em> had been abandoned to the ice and they’d begun their death trek across King William Island.</p><p>“On some fond breast the parting soul relies,” he murmured, feeling Thomas shift against him, “some pious drops the closing eye requires.”  A hand found his knee, resting there.  Strange how words only came easy when they were not his own, for all that he earnestly applied them.  “Ev’n in our ashes live their wanted fires.”</p><p>Thomas was silent.  Then: “You have me, Edward.  You can count on that.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He took Thomas out for a ride, setting a slow and steady pace on the country roads despite Gunpowder’s clear wishes to the contrary.  It was a last-ditch attempt to enjoy the peace for as long as they could in the weeks leading up to the court martial, but Edward was just selfish enough to seize them with everything he had.  His entire life had been given to the navy, and he had once clutched their rules and regulations to his chest the way a woman might her pearls.</p><p>Contempt was the only thing he felt for the authority of Her Majesty’s Discovery Service now, but he was a navy man still, beholden to the purse that allowed him to keep himself and Thomas here, even knowing that they could not hide forever.</p><p><em>Forever</em> could wait, however, and as he placed his hands on Tom’s hips and helped him down from atop Cap he drank in the slow curve of Thomas’ lips, the way his eyes softened ever so slightly at being feted and cared for the way Tom had spent his entire life doing for others.  They had a list of things to do, to prepare for, but he allowed himself to forget it for one more afternoon, and as they walked quietly beside their horses Edward allowed himself to reach out and gently hook his littlest finger through Thomas’, keeping his eyes trained determinedly on the road as they made their way languidly forward.</p><p>“Tom,” he started, but the words he wished to speak caught in his throat, permanently lodged there no matter how many times he tried to voice them.</p><p>It mattered not.  Quickly, so that anyone coming upon them would not have time to see, Thomas leaned up to press their mouths together in a firm kiss, acknowledging the sentiment unspoken and returning their meaning firmly, resolutely.  They continued on their way, and Edward felt the heat of the sun on the beaten dirt path and allowed the blackness in his lungs to ease, just a little.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There was an imminent sense of dread that unfurled in Edward’s chest when he walked into their bedroom that night to see Thomas sitting half-dressed with Le Vesconte’s letter in hand—the one Edward had nearly burned.</p><p>“… Tom,” he grit out, but Thomas merely rose serenely to his feet and crossed the room, stopping in front of him and tilting his head back slightly.</p><p>“You need to do something about this, Edward.”</p><p>“There is nothing to fix,” Edward said, feeling the stubborn set of his own jaw and hearing, distantly, his father’s vague remonstrations.  <em>You’re a god-awful mule when you want to be, Edward.</em></p><p>It had never worked on Simon Little, and it sure as hell didn’t seem to be working on Thomas Jopson, who pressed his mouth into a firm line before cocking his head to the side with a low sigh.</p><p>“A blind man can see that it weighs on you, Edward,” he said, reaching out to gently take the sleeve of Edward’s loosened shirt in hand.  “Don’t lie.  Not now."</p><p>Edward bowed his head.  His chest felt tight.  “He wanted to leave the captain behind,” he said, fingers curling into fists until his nails dug into the skin of his palm.  Thomas’ eyes were luminescent in the gloom, shifting with the flickering shadows, a brilliant, bright blue against a room filled with yellows and golds.  “He would have had me leave you <em>both</em>.  Him and the damn tin-addled fools he spoke for.  I cannot <em>forget</em> that, Tom.”</p><p>Once, years ago, surrounded by different men, Edward had listened as Fitzjames told a story of rockets and heroics and had spoken of Trafalgar with a gleam in his eyes and aspirations of glory coursing through his veins.  Later, he had sat in the captain’s cabin full of bluster and fear, surrounded by its greying, muted colours, and asked Crozier if the <em>Esquimaux</em> were at all <em>unforgiving</em> or <em>vengeful</em> when those they loved were wronged.  Jopson’s eyes had shot warning glances at him over the captain’s head, and Edward, flustered, had dropped the subject when breakfast had interrupted him, but there was no interruption now.  The cutting of the man’s tongue had not been a punishment from his people, but here, now, Edward thought he might have been able to understand if it had been; knew, with a grimace, that part of him would have liked nothing more than to enact that same sort of judgement on the men who had given voice to plans of abandonment—an echo of his own shame, of his own weakness, of a punishment he was sure he would have deserved at one point, something which made the black guilt even <em>worse</em>.</p><p>He had heard that, during the American war, the revolutionaries had tarred and feathered those still willing to profess loyalty to the British crown.  The tar prevented the skin from breathing, and burned hot to the touch, such that scraping it off often left raw and bloody skin behind.  Edward had never been subjected to such a humiliation, but he imagined that the guilt produced a similar effect, and his eyes darted about the room for a few moments before they settled back on Thomas, who was looking at him much as he had back in the captain’s cabin, all wide blue eyes and steadfast stance.</p><p>The hard edge was still there, carrying with it the lieutenant, the survivor, the executioner: a scar as much as the jagged line that marked Thomas’ thigh, as much as the one hidden in Edward’s hairline.  Neither of them had come back from that place unscathed, and for whatever reason, it made Edward’s shoulders sag as he drew in a breath that sounded more ragged than not.</p><p>“What if I had allowed it?” Edward forced out.  “No, Tom.  He had a duty.  A <em>responsibility</em>.  He cast it off, and would have dragged us all down in the process.”</p><p>“He was afraid, Edward,” Thomas said.  “They all were.”</p><p>“And his fear almost cost you and the captain your <em>lives</em>,” Edward snapped, temper flaring at last.  Thomas’ eyes hardened again for the briefest of moments, his shoulders stiffening and his lip curling in a way that made Edward think of that day in the tent yet <em>again</em> and, <em>God</em>, he could have made that mistake again, allowed the men’s terrible decision, could have killed them all because he was too weak to—</p><p><em>Fear</em>, Thomas had called it, and he was <em>right</em>, it <em>was</em> fear, and the worst part was Edward knew that because he himself had felt the exact same fear, had allowed it to control his tongue and give voice to a suggestion that had been fear wrapped in a thin veneer of false pragmatism, and that was all he had been able to think of when looking at Le Vesconte: fear, his own fear, ancient and primal, reflected back in exhausted, pleading eyes.</p><p>Edward drew in a shuddering breath.  Looked away.  The shame of it burned his throat, his face, his chest.  He heard Thomas sigh, but did not look at him.  Another man might have shook, but Edward stood still, the only moving part of his body his hands--which could not seem to still themselves--and his chest, which rose and fell rapidly.</p><p>“I am not asking you to forget, love,” Thomas said eventually, “but I am asking you to forgive, for your own sake.  And if not to forgive, then at least to understand.”  He paused.  Edward’s eyes flickered to him briefly, just in time to catch the impossible smoothness of Thomas’ expression.  Then Tom spoke again, three little words, damning with their power, with the evidence of what they had seen: “As I forgave you.”</p><p>Edward reeled back as if struck, expression shuttering and closing off, but Thomas was fast, his hands gripping tight Edward’s own, steely, pale eyes gazing at him such that Edward could not have possibly looked away.</p><p>“There are many types of poisons in this world, Edward, and they can kill a soul as quickly and as cleanly as any well-tied noose,” Thomas said.  “Do not let this be yours.”</p><p>Edward said nothing, merely turning and marching from the room.  He lost hours to the stables, to the gentle nickers of the horses as he went through a routine he had completed just that morning, until the tumultuous emotions in his chest simmered down enough that he could breathe again.</p><p>The shame caught up with him almost immediately.  The old sadness, the old despair—friends he had never forgotten and who had never allowed him a moment’s rest on the ice save for those rare times, those few precious moments that he clung to even now.  His shoulders sagged, and he dropped the brush in his hand to the floor as he settled against the wall of Gunpowder’s stall, sliding down to the hay-covered floor.</p><p>The guilt was easy to drown in.  Too easy.  The fear, the desperation, the everything—Thomas was right, it was a poison, one he could feel festering in his very soul… the way he knew it must in Le Vesconte’s, now and then.  He thought of Le Vesconte’s quiet but even confession—<em>there’s been a vote, Edward</em>—and the bleak fear that had suffused through Edward’s veins upon hearing them.  But so, too, did Edward remember a man with a slow and easy smile and soft eyes, a steadfast friend who had grieved the loss of a dear heart as much, if not more, than any of them had.</p><p>Le Vesconte had been a good man, once.  Loving and loved, a quiet and grounding counter to the more outlandish persona Fitzjames had shown them in those early years, but one still willing to slide in with an easy joke or a slow and genuine smile, eyes sparking with a warm, lively mirth that had endeared him first to <em>Erebus’ </em>officers and then, grudgingly, to <em>Terror’s</em>.  Fitzjames’ death had stolen that last spark of life and pushed a man who should have stepped into the light into the shadows.  Hunched and exhausted, pain written into every line of his face, Le Vesconte had clung to the only thing he had left, and Edward…</p><p>Edward felt another churning sensation in his chest and rose quietly to his feet.  He did not rush back to the house, but neither did he drag his boots, and when he walked in he was unsurprised to see Thomas standing at the window to their bedroom, eyes cast in the direction of the stables.  With hay clinging to his vest and shirt, Edward came up behind Tom and hooked his chin over the other man’s shoulder, his arms loosely encircling Tom’s waist.  He could feel Thomas sigh against him, and gladly took the extra weight of him as his Tom leaned back, accepting the unspoken, offered apology.</p><p>“I’ll try,” he said against the shell of Thomas’ ear.  Thomas’ reached back and slid a hand into his hair before turning his head to brush a fairy’s kiss against the corner of Edward’s mouth.</p><p>“That’s all I ask.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The day before they were set to leave, Edward found Thomas standing at the edge of the small pond—the one Janey had assured him was “all the rage” when she had first walked him and Tom through the newly landscaped garden, using her excitement over the changes to mask the way her voice had wavered when she spoke, and the way she had alternated between being unable to look at him and yet unwilling to look away.</p><p>One more night here, Edward thought, letting his eyes traverse the curated ideality of their escape from London.  Janey could not have made it any more different from the Arctic if she had tried, and Edward still did not know if that was something that helped, or if it hindered; if there was truly a chance to move forward, or if they were just playacting as they all tried to adjust to a world that would never be able to understand; that could never be trusted to <em>know</em>.</p><p>The familiar red of Thomas’ sleeves made Edward’s mind race.  He thought of the first time he had seen them rolled up, the way Thomas had arched and keened and sighed as his hands had scrambled deftly at the folds of Edward’s uniform, fingers cold as they brushed against Edward’s suddenly fevered skin.  He thought a lot, these days, of Thomas, but the notion that he should <em>not</em> think of him was something that Edward dismissed outright.</p><p>There was some guilt in it still, and he felt it keenly whenever his mind drifted to those who had returned with them, as strange as it was.  For the dead, their struggles were over; gone.  Beneath the earth, beneath the ice, there was a measure of peace in the eternal grave, or blessed oblivion.  Good men who had died in agony, their departure a mercy, suffered no more, their only regrets for those who would be left behind.</p><p>Suffering was the creed of the living, after all.</p><p>“Close,” Thomas said as Edward drew near, eyes fixed resolutely on what little they could see of the horizon.  “Close is worse than nothing.’”  He cast a look over his shoulder.  Edward, who had stopped by a small cluster of lady’s bedstraw, blinked.  Thomas cocked his head to the side.  “It’s worse than anything in the world.”  He turned back, arms folded, and Edward came to stand at his shoulder, nothing in front of them save the water, where for so long there had been a presence Edward could not help but feel he had failed.</p><p>He thought of Thomas’ strange words, the way they seemed to echo.  The barrenness of that hellscape greeted him behind his closed eyelids, and so he kept them open, following Thomas’ line of sight, but with that came thoughts of the captain, as alone here as he was on the ice and all the worse off for it, for who could not help the guilt at feeling alone in a room filled with other living, breathing men?</p><p>“I’ve lined up a carriage,” Edward said.  “For tomorrow.”</p><p>Thomas nodded.  In the light, Edward could see the faintest of scar patterns on his clean-shaven cheeks—thin, still, unhidden by facial hair the way Edward’s were.</p><p>“Gunpowder’s missed you,” Edward ventured after a moment, when the green of the garden became too much and the silence too weighted.  Thomas huffed, ducking his head, but Edward could see the wry smile that pulled at his mouth, and when he looked at Edward there was a warmth in his eyes that served to relax Edward’s own shoulders as the thaw continued inside his chest.</p><p>“Is this your way of getting me to ride that beast?”  It was a discussion they’d had before, during those first few weeks back, when Edward had spent more time in the small stables than he had in the small country house with its too-high ceilings and too-pristine decor.  Thomas hadn’t pushed, just as Edward hadn’t commented on the amount of time Thomas had spent obsessively rearranging the interior to better suit them, pulling furniture pieces closer together and further apart, anything to lessen the sheer space of the rooms.</p><p>Edward rolled his shoulders.  “As I said, he’s missed you.”</p><p>Thomas looked at him for a moment longer, then sighed.  “If I fall…” he warned, but he slipped his hand into Edward’s offered arm without finishing the thought, and Edward found himself smiling, genuine and happy.</p><p>“If you fall,” he said, leading them down a path that he hoped would one day be familiar to them both, “then at the very least you can count that I will be falling with you.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The face that stared back at him from the mirror was well-groomed, a familiar stranger that Edward Little had not seen since those halcyon days early in their voyage, when there had still been hope that the ice would free them from its grasp and his biggest worry had been whether he was making a fool of himself in front of the captain, the other officers, and one very observant steward.  His hair was slightly longer than it had been in the captain’s cabin in those early days, both on his face and his head, but Thomas had hummed and hawed and neatened it up, and then sat carefully while Edward had helped him do the same, his head tilted back and his eyes closed.</p><p>There was no uniform for Thomas, not yet.  Edward, indignant, had almost refused to wear his own until Thomas had shook his head, telling him he did not need a uniform to hold the rank that the Admiralty had, grudgingly, upheld.</p><p>He did not know what it said about him now, that he was willing to throw aside the rules and the protocol and the duty he had spent so long trying to uphold.  Frozen in the north and stiff in the greatcoat that had become a second home, he had told Captain Crozier that a full court martial was technically required when a ship was lost.  Having lost two ships, he supposed it made sense that they would court martial two captains, but the Edward Little who would have once dutifully gone without complaint, without thought, was as dead as the majority of the expeditions other officers, and his loyalties—</p><p>In his heart lay the sea and the discipline of the navy he had been raised to serve, like his father before him.  Once there had only been that strict adherence to duty, a strict adherence that had lead to his gentle rebukes to Crozier, to Fitzjames, leaders of men with far more experience under his belt than he, who understood the needs of men beyond the hierarchy.  He had been loyal, but his loyalty had been to the Admiralty, to an absent and faceless entity.  In his heart still lay the sea, tamed with the selfsame navy discipline and loyalty, but now alongside the sea rested the sun and even traces of the ice.  The Arctic had taught him loyalty to the men around him, his faith in God and in proper British procedure replaced with the determination to do right by them all, and then shaken that very same loyalty until Edward had felt as lost and unmoored as a ghost ship abandoned at sea, leading a fleet of wrecks to their doom.</p><p>Jacob had once seen an invisible world where the Lord had promised him that He would not leave, that He would be with Jacob wherever he went.  Edward was no God, was not sure he believed in one, not anymore, and the words seemed a paltry thing now, though they had weighed heavily on his soul that day at Franklin’s gravesite, in full navy dress as they lowered a mostly empty coffin into the frozen ground.  He was not Jacob, either, for all that he was a leader of whatever it was that remained of the men who had been <em>his</em>, in the end, and so maybe there was no invisible world for him anymore, just whatever strange, tangible thing lay all around him, replacing his previously structured, orderly worldview with knowledge he hadn’t wanted but now had to live with.</p><p>“Turn,” Thomas commanded gently, and Edward did so.  The jacket slid on easily, and Edward did not fight the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth as Thomas hummed a low tune under his breath, fingers dancing over buttons and fastenings and things Edward could do on his own but wouldn’t, not when he could see the care in every single of of Thomas’ actions, in the light that danced in his eyes—not as soft as it was in the past, likely never to be that soft again, but still the eyes of the man he loved, come hell and whatever else lurked beyond the realm of human comprehension.</p><p>“Ssh,” Jopson had whispered to him one of those first nights in the countryside, drawing Edward’s face against his collarbone and holding fast as he sighed his pleasure, his <em>relief</em>, and for a moment, a <em>moment</em>, Edward had been able to forget, to lose himself in the willing body beneath his, in the man he had almost betrayed, heedless of the poison that lived in all their veins.  Afterwards, when he’d lain against Thomas’ chest, still held snug in the confines of the other man’s body—<em>“do not leave me, not yet,”</em> Thomas had pleaded, and Edward, remembering a time when he <em>had</em>, even if it had only been temporary, had been unable to refuse—he had allowed himself to bask in the sensation of Jopson’s fingers drawing sleepy patterns against his back.</p><p>He’d kept his own hands still, the raised scar under his palm comforting.  He had never asked Jopson where it came from, and Jopson had never volunteered the information.  In the grand scheme of things, it hardly mattered.</p><p>They all had far worse scars to contend with, now.</p><p>Thomas’ hands were steady and practiced as they skimmed up the front of his uniform, attaching the epaulettes that Edward had once worn with so much pride.  Now, staring at them in the mirror, the gold reflecting the light of the pre-dawn candle Thomas had lit, he felt nothing—not sorrow, not anger, not contempt, not pride, and that, he thought, was far worse than having felt any particular emotion about them at all.  <em>Mother would be proud</em>, the voice of the man he had once been whispered.  <em>Her son, the commander.</em>  <em>Her son, the captain</em>.</p><p>
  <em>Her son, who lived.</em>
</p><p>He thought of Lady Franklin’s hopeful face, standing front and centre as she looked for the man who had had the good sense to die before the trek, before the endless betrayals, before the endless expanse of <em>nothing</em> that still plagued Edward whenever he closed his eyes.  Shrouded in black, she had already looked a widow, and Edward wondered if she had known, somehow, that her husband had perished in that place, even as she constantly petitioned the Admiralty to mount a rescue that had been too slow, <em>too late</em> in coming.</p><p>“Is that all of you, then?” Captain Austin had said in disbelief when they’d first been brought aboard, the pitiful twenty-three that had remained where there had once been one hundred and thirty-four souls.  Once, Edward might have begrudged him the incredulous tone of his voice, but with his scrap of silk clutched in one hand and Jopson’s unmoving form cradled against his chest, he had only been able to manage the slightest narrowing of his eyes, his tongue a leaden weight in his mouth that only lifted when he had at last been able to secure a cabin for Jopson—a cabin which had been ostensibly his, as one of the last remaining ranked officers; the highest ranked, after the captain.</p><p>“All that God has seen fit to spare,” Crozier had said simply, but the wry twist to his mouth and the dark shroud in his eyes had belied any faith he might have had left.</p><p>Edward’s only answer had been the heaving of his chest, the heaviness of his lungs, and in his arms Jopson had drawn in a single, rattling breath, prompting Edward’s helpless gaze.</p><p>He had forgotten, perhaps on purpose, the memory subsumed by an anger still fresh, a wound still raw, but Le Vesconte had spoken then, stepping forward, slops hanging lank on his once-proud frame as the captain had helped Edward to support Jopson’s weight in arms that suddenly felt too weak.</p><p>“Lieutenant Jopson needs help,” Le Vesconte had said, command slipping back into his voice, abandoned and then taken up for this one, most brief of moments.  “Please, is there a surgeon on board?”</p><p>His words had broken the morbid tableau and sent their would-be rescuers into a flurry of motion, and Le Vesconte himself had faded into the background again as names were taken and men were moved between the little fleet, the surgeons England had sent with Austin and the others about to earn their pay six times over.</p><p>“Come back to me,” Thomas said now, smoothing his hands over Edward’s shoulder, radiant in the pre-dawn light.  His wrists were still too thin, his ribs just this side of too prominent, but the healthy flush in his cheeks was present, and Edward, still so weak in many ways, pulled him forward into a languid, searching kiss, content to stand there with Tom in his arms until he heard the carriage as it rattled up the road.</p><p>“Tom,” he said, pressing their foreheads together, eyes sliding closed.  He thought of what awaited them back in London, of <em>who</em> awaited them.  It mattered dearly, <em>Lord above</em> did it matter, but for now he would steal that last scrap of peace.  Trading a few more kisses back and forth, Edward slid his fingers along Thomas’ neatly trimmed hair, and he did not hide the softness in his own voice, his own eyes, as he said: “My Tom.  I never left.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>London was a beast of a thing, ever expanding beyond its territorial borders until all things around it gave way to the hunger of its widening maw, but she had her birth in the rivers and the ports, and so Edward was unsurprised to be lead there, the lingering scent of salt and fish and all matters of unpleasant things strong in the air as he held out a hand to help Thomas out of the carriage.</p><p>He got a bit of a look for that from Tom, but the proffered hand had been taken nonetheless, and Edward was careful to not push his luck—<em>their </em>luck—by tucking Thomas’ hand into the crook of his elbow like he so sorely wanted to.  Instead, he waited with still hands and a calm, steady set to his shoulders as Thomas, in his own dress uniform, replaced the hat on his head, the both of them starring at the moored HMS <em>Resolute</em>, where the navy court martial was set to be held—as it always was—in the forenoon, in the most public place on the ship.</p><p>There were some baleful expressions among those present, their disapproval shining from amongst pinched faces in the small crowd that had slowly begun to gather, but Edward ignored them.  Angry over the loss of the ships and of life, or angry that the survivors had been released to rest and recover at their respective homes instead of being immediately arrested with a set trial date, Edward did not know; nor, to the point did their thoughts or opinions hold any sway with him the way they once had.  They were within the boundaries of the law, at least in this, and those who thought they should have been confined their ships to answer for the deaths of over one-hundred souls had no say over their fate.  His father had said as much, and Edward, who had grown up on his father’s stories during his time as a paymaster and purser in the Royal Navy, was inclined to believe him.</p><p>A month into their stay in the country Simon Little had visited, and Edward had listened with a raised eyebrow and a low sigh as his father recounted the trial of Admiral Keppel, calmly relaying how, in years past, members of the Court overseeing a court martial—as well as the men being court-martialled—had been forbidden from leaving the ship until a sentence was given.</p><p>“It is a blessing that such is no longer the case, sir,” Thomas had said simply, reaching over to refill Simon’s decanter of brandy and delicately ignoring the way Edward’s father’s hands had shook with age.</p><p>“Indeed,” had been the reply, and though Edward and Thomas were careful to sit as far apart as propriety demanded, Simon had looked at them then through narrowed, considering eyes before he’d simply blinked and continued on,.  Edward had thought himself in the clear until, when Edward’s oldest brother George had at last come to bring their father back to the old family home, Simon had clapped Edward on the shoulder with one shaky hand.</p><p>“My time’s short, boy,” he’d said, “but I’ll make sure I live long enough to make sure those fools in the Admiralty see reason.”  His eyes—a dark blue, not like Edward’s in colour <em>and yet you still both have that same look</em>, his mother had once complained—had settled over Edward’s shoulder then, to where Thomas was speaking to George, the familiar cadence of his voice reaching Edward with ease despite the physical distance.</p><p>“Not your mother’s pick, I’d wager, but he’s a comely thing,” he’d grunted, eyes flicking up when Edward had near frozen solid under the suddenly substantial weight of his frail hand. “Buck up, Edward.  At least I can go to my grave knowing my son is alive and happy.”</p><p>“He’s a good man,” was all Edward had been able to say, and Simon had given his shoulder one last pat before they’d made their way down the gravel path towards where Thomas and George were waiting with the family’s old draught horses and carriage.</p><p>“She seems smaller here,” Edward said of <em>Resolute</em>.  Thomas inclined his head.</p><p>“They always seem such, sir.”</p><p>Unspoken was the sentiment that, after seeing <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> held so swiftly in ice, crushed by the very Passage they had been trying to navigate and surrounded by a vast nothingness that had dwarfed everything in comparison, he was unsure if he would ever look at another ship, no matter the navy’s pride in her, the same.</p><p>They made their way forward, through the throngs of people, ignoring the other carriages and their still-living cargo as they proceeded up the gangplank.</p><p>The first thing he noticed was that Le Vesconte had combed his hair, the style an imitation of the one he had worn at the Admiralty’s banquet all those years ago, before their expedition had left Greenhithe.  He had been smiling and alive then, the light catching at the gold on his shoulders, at his breast, his eyes trained resolutely on Fitzjames as Graham Gore laughed along to whatever it was <em>Erebus</em>’ recently commissioned commander had been saying at the time.</p><p>That same gold glinted on his shoulders now, but where Le Vesconte had once stood with a quiet confidence and a sense of calm he now stood with shoulders just this side of curled in, the grey in his hair—a fashion statement before, and partially artificial—achingly prominent against polished buttons and a face that was still too pale.</p><p>Thomas’ hand found his arm for the quickest of seconds.  “I will wait over here,” he said simply, and Edward, in his best impression of every captain he had ever known, gritted his teeth and gave a sharp nod before he moved forward.</p><p>“Henry,” Edward said simply.  Fitzjames had fondly referred to the man as <em>Dundy</em>, from the <em>Dundas</em> that made up the man’s full name, Edward knew, but they were not friends, and Edward felt wrong using it, as he did addressing the other man by either his rank or his surname.</p><p>He had never heard anyone refer to Le Vesconte as <em>Henry</em> before.  He wondered if there was anyone in the other man’s life who still did.</p><p>Le Vesconte blinked rapidly when he saw Edward, trepidation flickering across his face before the expression was briefly overtaken by a deep, aching sadness.  To his credit, the man covered it up quickly, straightening his shoulders and inclining his head politely to both Edward and to Thomas before Thomas himself slipped away, leaving the two of them to stare at each other on <em>Resolute</em>’s deck.</p><p>“Captain Little,” he said, in deference to Edward’s new rank, now made public.  The title settled oddly over Edward’s shoulders, odder still coming from a man who, by all rights, should have worn the rank in his stead.  Le Vesconte held a new title now, <em>Commander Le Vesconte</em> an easy thing off the tongue, but Edward wondered, privately, if the other man loathed it as much as Edward had loathed his own promotion—if, perhaps, he heard the word <em>commander</em> and thought of a different man, one who had not made it back.</p><p>“Edward,” was all Edward said.  He would not stand on rank here.  Thomas’ eyes were heavy on his back for a moment, but when he glanced over the man was engaged in an easy conversation with Crozier, the faintest of smiles creasing his face.</p><p>“I am—glad, Edward, that he survived,” Le Vesconte said haltingly.  “And, Edward, for whatever my word is worth, for whatever <em>I </em>am worth, I am sorry, truly, more sorry than you could ever know.”  He bowed his head, shoulders falling, until there was no trace of the proud man who had set sail at Greenhithe six years ago.  The part of Edward that still raged, the part of him that was still a man reduced to nothing more than wounded animal with the overpowering instinct to survive and <em>protect</em>, wanted to scorn the apology, but the part of him that Thomas insisted was there--the better man, the <em>good</em> man, who had led a group of wraiths against armed traitors and a creature--and who could see, in Le Vesconte, the man he almost was, the man he, perhaps, had once been, eased off, until he could feel the frigid black ice in his chest begin to drift away in jagged floes.</p><p>Edward exhaled, his own shoulders sagging the slightest bit, and then he reached out to gently rest a hand on Le Vesconte’s shoulder, heedless of the epaulette.  “I do know,” he said simply.  He jerked his head towards Thomas, who looked up at that same moment, pale eyes dancing and beckoning over the heads of the gathering men the way they had in the captain’s cabin at the beginning of it all.  “And if you can forgive me for including my own mistakes in the list of things I was punishing you for, then you have my forgiveness.”  He inclined his own head.  “For whatever my word and my person is worth.”</p><p><em>Everything</em>, Thomas had whispered to him in the carriage as they’d driven up, and the notion that he could mean anything at all to a man like Thomas Jopson had his shoulders straightening, the last dredges of the storm looming over his thoughts easing.  He handed Le Vesconte a scrap of paper with their address on it—<em>“</em>Easier than sending word through the captain, is it not?  Thomas would not be adverse to your visiting; he says you like horses”—and nodded when Le Vesconte took it with a hand that only trembled a little.</p><p>“Peace, Henry,” Edward said simply, knowing such a sentiment was a thing easier said than achieved, but hoping the other man could find it all the same.  He glanced over at the captain, who stood straight and proud, but whose grief was still etched into the lines of his forehead and into the corners of a mouth that only ever smiled with a ghostly sadness accompanying it.  He was smiling that same smile now, clapping Thomas on the shoulder and saying something too low for Edward to hear.  Whatever it was made Thomas' face relax, his entire expression open and soft, and Edward was overcome, briefly, with his affection for the man he was lucky enough to consider <em>his</em>, no matter that it could never be public; no matter anything that had come to pass.</p><p>“And to you, Edward,” Le Vesconte murmured, eyes following Edward’s.  He smiled, hesitantly, and added: “Though I suspect you already found some measure of it.  James would—he would have been happy for you, too.”</p><p>Edward nodded.  He did not contradict Le Vesconte’s notion of peace, did not voice that he suspected none of them would ever achieve it, not truly, not the way they might have if not for the knowledge they now carried of things seen and horrors survived, and yet—</p><p>“You should talk to the captain,” Edward said, inclining his head towards Crozier and Thomas, the latter of whom was smiling over at them now.  “I suspect you have some things in common.”</p><p>“All but the most important,” Le Vesconte said softly.  Edward shrugged and turned his head away, caught on the ease and fluidity of Thomas’ step as he approached.</p><p>“The forenoon is near,” he said, and Edward nodded, casting one more quick look at Le Vesconte before the three of them made their way over to the captain, who cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows at the new addition to their party but otherwise said nothing of the man’s presence.</p><p>“Edward,” he greeted.</p><p>“Sir,” Edward replied.</p><p>“Oh, do call me Francis, Edward.  Not as if we survived an arctic nightmare together, after all,” the captain groused.  Where Edward might have once cited protocol, now he just blinked slowly and nodded while Thomas hid the smallest of smiles behind a slightly turned head.</p><p>“Now,” Crozier said crisply, jamming his hat onto his head and gesturing towards the great door that lead belowdeck, where Austin and the Admiralty had already gathered.  “Let’s see what complete trite they’ve seen fit to level against us today.”  He pushed through the door and entered without any more delay, followed by a more resolute Le Vesconte, but while Edward and Thomas both followed, they lingered a subtle distance behind—enough that Edward could tuck Thomas’ hand at last into the crook of his elbow at last, where it rested gently.</p><p>There could be no public gesture beyond that.  Here, outside of the sanctuary they’d slowly begun to build, they could not indulge in syrupy, soft kisses or intimate caresses, but just knowing Thomas stood beside him, and he Thomas—it set something in Edward’s breast afire, made his spine seem straighter, the burden on his shoulders less weighty at last.  The light twinkled and reflected off the gold of their uniforms, streaming in through the few windows allotted as they made their way down, but the colours did not burn as they once had, and they all paled in comparison to the serene look in Thomas’ blue eyes as he, too, squared up, the rank of <em>lieutenant</em> worn like a necklace of the finest pearls: graceful and beautiful.</p><p>“How warm it is here,” Thomas murmured to him as they descended into the belly of the clawless beast, and Edward, who had spent so long carrying the ice in his chest, who had seen that same ice reflected in eyes that that now seemed suffused with the warmth of the lit candles that marked their path, could only nod.</p><p><em>My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep</em>, he thought as he looked into those eyes, silently communicating all that he could.  Words he had once whispered in the countryside ran through his head amok, the sentiment behind them no less strong than it had been; the opposite, in fact, for Edward suspected it grew stronger by the day, and would only continue to grow as the years they had fought so hard for progressed.  He had Thomas, and Thomas had him, and Edward would pour all he had into a future he could not see if it meant keeping Thomas by his side.  After all, both were infinite, as the bard had once said, and as they pushed their way through the beating heart of <em>Resolute</em> towards a room housing a sea of familiar and unfamiliar faces, Edward found he could lift his head with only the barest trace of the shadow that had dogged his steps since before they had abandoned the ships to ice.</p><p>A century ago another Thomas, a Mr. Gray, had written an elegy on death and remembrance thereafter, musing on the obscure and the unknown and all the things that splintered out from in between.  Circumstance kept the protagonist of the poem from his dreams, and he had died in obscurity with a sincere soul consigned to oblivion, but Edward, who had one abandoned the upland lawn to chase glory to the ends of the earth, who had <em>found</em> that nebulous thing for queen and empire and who had left it behind it just as quickly for the man, the <em>men</em>, at his side, could appreciate the solemn stillness, the fading landscape, abandoning too the shrine of luxury and pride that Gray had described all too readily.</p><p>The gold of the Admiralty—of his own uniform—was still an eyesore, still too bright, but that his eyes ached at it only solidified the fact that they had made it out of that place, that they yet lived.  A chore some days, to be sure, but they had survived despite it all, and Edward—</p><p>Edward wouldn’t waste this chance.  Would not waste the warmth he had found, somehow, despite it all.  His bounty encompassed more than the sea, and glory was best left to dig its own grave.  Edward would not assist it.  He had his life, he had the captain’s life, <em>Thomas’ </em>life, and <em>God</em>, he would live it.</p><p>Before him, Crozier placed his hands on the final door, beyond which the low murmurs of the gathered officers could be heard, but before he pushed them open he turned back to look at Edward, his eyes flickering briefly to where Thomas’ hand was still tucked against Edward’s elbow.  Thomas chuckled, removing it, but the warm imprint of his touched remained, suffused throughout Edward’s body, his fingers fidgeting not due to nerves but simply because for once they were not too cold to do so.</p><p>“This, then home,” Edward said simply, glancing at Thomas.  Crozier looked at them, and something in his countenance seemed to soften at last, warmth creeping into his eyes as he nodded.</p><p>“Aye, Edward.  Home.”</p><p>Edward could not wait.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>SELECT NOTES</b><br/>- Apparently the real George Back was a complete jerk whom most people could not stand (Franklin included), so I feel justified in reflecting that somewhat here.<br/>- “[...] Lament as if I were dead, over my grave. […] These are my last words to you.” Eur. El. 1321<br/>- Capilet was the name of a horse in Shakespeare’s <i>Twelfth Night</i>. Gunpowder is the name of Ichabod Crane’s horse in <i>The Legend of Sleepy Hollow</i>.  Special thanks to my beloved and dear friend, who put up with all my questions about horses and who just accepted it when my answer to her “where are all these questions coming?” inquiry was “Ned Little is a classy Victorian horse man and I am not.”<br/>- “Would Ned be able to afford a country house?” The historic Edward Little was baptized in Hornsey in 1812.  His father held the rank of Paymaster and Purser.  Taking all of that together (Hornsey was not a low-income area), the notion that Edward could have enough funds to purchase such a home and maintain some horses is not completely out of the left field. The Admiralty had also awarded Edward Little with a Commandership in 1846, after the Franklin Expedition had left (as mentioned in his father’s obituary), which would have further increased his income.  Men in the Discovery Service could be expected to make around 3x more than men in other parts of the navy of the same rank—hence “the money’s good, if you live to spend it,” because the Admiralty knew it was dangerous and that many men <i>wouldn’t</i>.<br/>- <i>“Hell is full of good meanings and wishes”</i> is an earlier (1670) iteration of the more well-known “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, which itself wasn’t published until 1855, a couple of years after this fic is set.<br/>- <i>“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”</i> Romeo &amp; Juliet A2S2, Shakes. Oh, Nedward.<br/>- On 2 March 1842, Edward Little began serving as Lieutenant aboard the HMS <i>Vindictive</i>, which was commanded by Captain John Toup Nicolas in the East Indies around that time.<br/>- Lady bedstraw smells like fresh hay when it’s dry, so, you know. Horseman Edward. You’re welcome, maybe?<br/>- Catch the Stan Rogers song reference and win the knowledge that you, too, spend too much time listening to old Canadian classics.<br/>- Did you know that it’s actually a fallacy that a court martial is required in the event of a lost ship?  Neither did I—or the show.  Still, it’s canon in the show, and so I ran with it.</p><p><b>BIBLIOGRAPHY</b><br/>Acland, Reginald. "The Development of Naval Courts Martial." <i>Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law</i>, 4, no. 1 (1922): 35-59. Accessed September 3, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/753345.</p><p>Beattie, Owen, and John Geiger. <i>Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition</i>. 6th ed. Vancouver / Berkeley, B.C: Greystone Books, 2017.</p><p>Bray, E.  <i>A Frenchman in search of Franklin: de Bray's Arctic journal, 1852–1854</i>. University of Toronto Press, 1992.</p><p>Clive A. Holland, “AUSTIN, Sir HORATIO THOMAS,” in <i>Dictionary of Canadian Biography</i>, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed August 23, 2020, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/austin_horatio_thomas_9E.html. </p><p>Edinger, R.  <i>Fury Beach: The Four-Year Odyssey of Captain John Ross and the Victory</i>. New York: Berkley, 2003.</p><p>Euripides, <i>Electra</i>, trans. E.R. Coleridge, 1938, in the Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg012.perseus-eng1:1321 (accessed August 2020).</p><p>Gray, Thomas. “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” <i>Thomas Gray Archive</i>, 2 June, 2020. https://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc. </p><p>Hutchinson, Gillian. <i>Sir John Franklin's Erebus and Terror Expedition: Lost and Found</i>. Adlard Coles Nautical, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.</p><p>Marsh, James H.,  and Owen Beattie,  "Franklin Search".  In <i>The Canadian Encyclopedia</i>. Historica Canada. Article published February 07, 2006; Last Edited March 08, 2018. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/franklin-search</p><p>Potter, Russell A. <i>Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search</i>. McGill-Queens University Press, 2016.</p><p>Shakespeare, William. “Romeo and Juliet.” <i>The Complete Works of William Shakespeare</i>. MIT, n.d. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html.</p><p>Watson, Paul. <i>Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition</i>. Toronto: McClelland &amp; Stewart, 2017.</p><p>- - -</p><p>As always, though a bibliography has been provided, I have included a blend of fact and fiction in this work.  Please forgive me for liberties taken and know I did it for a good cause.  Comments are cherished 🖤</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://empirics.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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